


kote

by scythias



Series: star wars [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF CC-2224 | Cody, Brotherhood, Character Study, Cody Has A Lightsaber, Fix-It, Gen, Minor Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Revenge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:08:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 152,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23371453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scythias/pseuds/scythias
Summary: He curses at his dilemma just when he remembers General Kenobi’s lightsaber clipped to his belt. He looks down at the weapon, shimmering against his thigh and begging to be held. He feels dread and hesitance creep at his body. He was not going to do this.The droids surrounding him raise their blasters. Cody sighs.Okay, he was doing this.(or: au where everything is the same except cody has a lightsaber.)
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & CC-3636 | Wolffe, CC-2224 | Cody & CT-7567 | Rex, CC-2224 | Cody & Clone Troopers, CC-2224 | Cody & Jango Fett, CC-2224 | Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi, CC-2224 | Cody & Original Character(s), CC-2224 | Cody & Wooley
Series: star wars [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663864
Comments: 191
Kudos: 425





	1. warning signs

**Author's Note:**

> this is both the best and worst idea i have ever come up with. this fic is literally just me strangling dave filoni with my bare hands, lmao. idk where this will go but you know what? we'll get through it. i lit rally just want my boy cody to be the badass i know and love.
> 
> mando'a translations are on the bottom!

The lightsaber at Cody’s feet seems to laugh at him when he catches sight of it.

The metallic gleam of it in the rays of the two suns on the planet which makes the climate muggy and dry jeers at him, mocking him with its gorgeous finish and intricate carving. Cody can barely suppress a sigh when he bends down to pick it up, the familiar weight of it easy and light in his hand. He remembers the scene vividly, as he watched it play before him with his own eyes — General Kenobi yelping when the local Seppie warlords perform a deadly trick, kicking out the saber from his hands and having it fall several feet below to the ground. Cody inspects the damage done and mutters a noise of relief when he finds it in working order. Still functioning well enough to allow him the pleasure of knocking Obi-Wan’s head with the butt of it. 

He’s too used to this scenario. It happened a few days ago on their mission on Ord Mantell, and before that during the incursion on Ryloth, and before that… well, Cody was pretty sure his accelerated aging skyrocketed every time Obi-Wan had lost grip on his lightsaber. It happens so frequently that he wonders how Kenobi even managed to get a seat on the Council, much less the rank of a Jedi Knight. Cody couldn’t judge, as he’s had his fair share of training accidents back on Kamino that opened up the scar on his visage more than once, but at the same time he wonders if the Republic is worth fighting for at this point. He went from being marshall commander of the effective 212th Attack Battalion to Lightsaber Storage.

Cody clips it to his belt and quickly ducks blaster fire raining in his direction, rolling away and hiding behind a nearby dune. The Separatist droids were overflowing the area, though Cody’s men were little overwhelmed. They, like Cody, were familiar with the _beskar’ade_. They fought with courage and ferocity, despite the numbers that dropped dead on the ground, shooting at the incoming forces and yelling battle cries with rifles and cannons. Cody unholsters his blaster from his belt, keeping an eye out on the clankers that threatened to come closer, and calculating his attack, he charges from his hiding spot and towards the droids attacking the village.

He fights with a ruthlessness that he does not use when he spars with his brothers. Here, on the battlefield, he is unafraid of being a force to be reckoned with. He smashes clankers upside the head with his blaster and fires shots that hit them dead in their cores; he roundhouses and axe-kicks droids that dare to come close to his vicinity. He leads his men to push forward as the droids come through the village walls, his voice harsh and booming so that all knew what he was speaking. With Cody back on the front lines they began to overtake the droid army fairly well, despite their own men falling prey to the incoming blaster fire.

Then comes the epitome of Cody’s bad luck — his blaster is shot right out of his hand by one of the super battle droids, clunking to the ground smoking from its cylinder. Cody grabs his wrist and hisses, the shot scraping the inside of his palm. It didn’t hurt too much, thank heavens, but when he looks down at the ground and catches sight of his blaster, a hole pierced straight through it, he curses. He doesn’t have time to weep and find a new weapon in the scuffle, because the battle droid that shot the gun out of his hand swept at him, knocking him against a nearby wall. 

Cody hits it with a large clang and a cry. He slumps against the wall, groaning as his vision swims. The force was enough to knock his sunbonnet clean off his head, and though his sight is no longer impaired by the edges of the choking helmet, he doesn’t appreciate it. He recovers fairly quickly, head lolling around his neck before the mangled shapes settle down. A portion of the incoming droids sees him and begin to make their way towards him. Their metal hides are deadly to look at in the rays of the sun, their cold dead eyes fixating on Cody’s limp form. Shit.

Cody slowly rises from his slump on the ground. He barely dodges a blaster that one of the B-1s aim at him, nearly shaving off a portion of his ear if he wasn’t quick enough. He can see what they’re doing. Slowly torturing him, driving him both metaphorically and literally up a wall, without a weapon to use to defend himself and muddled in the head. He’d love to punch them in the face and rip them to shreds, to show them just how the deadliest hand-to-hand combatant on Kamino appreciated their mockery. But with the dizziness in his skull from the impact of the shove and the growing numbers gaining on his form, he knows that such action would be suicide. He looks over to see that his brothers are too occupied to be able to help him, and General Kenobi was still in conflict with the Separatist-sided warlords. He was basically alone in this scenario. Weaponless and surrounded.

He curses at his dilemma just when he remembers General Kenobi’s lightsaber clipped to his belt. He looks down at the weapon, shimmering against his thigh and begging to be held. He feels dread and hesitance creep at his body. He was not going to do this.

The droids surrounding him raise their blasters. Cody sighs.

Okay, he was doing this.

Quick as a lynx, he reaches down and unclips the lightsaber hanging from his hip, and activates it just in time to deflect the incoming blaster fire. He’s trained with melee weapons before, just enough practice with blades to know how to deflect each shot with utmost precision, parrying each one until it hit metal hides. The lightsaber, however, is extremely lightweight in his grasp. It is as if he is not holding anything at all, the saber responding to what he wants to do while simultaneously guiding his hand. Cody attempts not to focus on it however, proceeding to advance towards the droids that were driving him against the wall.

He can see that the clankers left from the deflected blaster fire were confused. They failed to compute the sudden situation of a clone wielding a lightsaber, which Cody managed to feel some sort of solidarity with, as he began to cut them through them with violent swings. He was just applying techniques of weapon handling to the wielding of a lightsaber, basically just using ingrained training tactics and knowing at least one of them will wield good results. He decapitated a B-1, blocked a super battle droid’s blaster fire onto itself, and swiped at the kneecaps of a commando droid that had tried to charge at him. For his first time in wielding a lightsaber, he was surprisingly still alive. He still retained the agility and deadliness as he does with a blaster, perhaps even more.

Cody proceeds to drive up a nearby droid against one of the village’s small houses and spears it in the chest with the gleaming weapon. Its interface short-circuits just as Cody catches sight of a discarded blaster on the ground in perfect condition. Still retaining the saber in the droid's chest, he grabbed the blaster and fired on the clankers surrounding his troops. A few miss, with majority piercing their shiny metallic bodies until he was left with several droid cadavers. Cody slices the droid he pierced against the wall in half before dicing through several _beskar’ade_ , eyes trained on one of the surviving boltheads — a spider droid, blaster nozzle shooting at his brothers with explosions erupting from each shot. Cody, ever so bold yet ever so pessimistic, braces himself for when he hops up on top of the droid, activates the saber once again, and drives it straight through the spider’s head. It crumbles immediately to the ground, its circuitry malfunctioning from the intrusion, and as it falls to a silence so does the atmosphere around.

Cody was breathing heavily, stepping off the droid and deactivating the sky blue weapon, and despite the perspiration edging down his forehead he’s still in good condition. He suddenly realizes that the dead quiet around was not just due to the fall of the droids but from his men as well. Ghost Company was staring straight at him from where they were perched in the aftermath of the battle, scattered around the wrecked village square with buckets torn off their heads and jaws agape. Included in the shock and bewilderment of Cody’s troops was General Kenobi back from defeating the warlords, eyes widened in speechless surprise from Cody’s daring performance. Boil and Waxer take up the space behind him, equally as perturbed.

Cody glances around, meeting eyes with his troops and general. He silently goes to retrieve his discarded helmet, thankfully still in good condition, and returns with it tucked beneath his armpit. He walks straight up to General Kenobi, meeting his gaze with steel eyes as he places the lightsaber in the general’s outstretched palm. “Here you are, sir,” he says. Obi-Wan blinks furiously out of his daze before nodding.

“Right, thank you Cody.” He diverts back to his regular manner of speech, characteristically joyful from their triumph against the Separatist armies. “Well, gentlemen, looks like today is another hard-earned victory. Let’s tend to the wounded and help the villagers out of their bunker.” The troops immediately snap at attention to their general’s orders, and while the medics go to retrieve the wounded with medkits in hand, the other half of Ghost Company heads to the nearby bunker where the villagers of the homes they were protecting were hiding from the violence.

Commander Cody was about to go help his injured brethren and such when Boil and Waxer appeared in front of him. He could already feel the headache arise. They are bug-eyes and open jawed, and at that point they were able to eat an entire bantha whole. Cody sighs when he sees them, knowing the yelling bound to ensue from his right-hand men.

“ _Vod_ ,” Boil began. “What the kriff just happened?”

Cody narrowed his eyes at the scout, crossing his arms. “What do you mean just happened?”

Waxer came out of his stupor, shaking his head and pointing at General Kenobi, speaking with Crys as they followed the troops to the villager bunker. “What just happened is that you used a lightsaber. General Kenobi’s lightsaber!”

“ _Vod_ , you have any idea what you just did?” Boil stressed. 

Cody eyed them both, and when he speaks, he makes sure the exasperation is evident in his voice. “Boys, I am tired. I just did what I had to in that situation. And, trust me, I will tell you all about it back on the fleet. But I am exhausted, I need water, and I need a goddamn nap. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to physically restrain from clocking our general right in the _kles_.”

Waxer sighs. “Alright, brother. But you owe us a story later.” His smile often so sweet hides a malicious mischief, and Cody knows that the promise regarding his story of wielding General Kenobi’s sacred weapon was going to be inevitable. He watches Waxer drag a still disgruntled Boil away to speak with the others, and Cody lets out a relieved exhale. He loved them, he really did, but he’s dealt with enough today and he is not about to handle more. He catches eye of the wounded his _vode_ are still hauling up from the ground, plus the many clone bodies that would need to be wrapped and burned later, and he begins to aid with the recovery process.

It’s both his least favorite thing to do — _the eyes of his own brothers rolled up to their foreheads, soldiers screaming gritty cries from lost limbs_ — and the thing is feels obligated to do — _to aid in the recovery for his men who he failed to save, to make sure with tender touches that his fallen soldiers are given a proper goodbye_. He helps load up the injured onto the stretchers the medics bring in, then gathers up the bodies to be taken to a pyre later tonight. As the villagers begin swarming their damaged village once again, Cody bites back a smile when he sees them sobbing as they embrace one another and the clones around, thankful for their survival of such a horrid ordeal that no sentient should ever suffer. He even lets a few kids run up to him and hug his leg, their form of thanks for the protection he had served. Cody’s face always breaks into a betraying grin as he pets their little heads and lifts one into his arms.

They were due to leave soon back to Coruscant after the completion of their two day-long mission, and Cody bids the villagers farewell when they begin to load up and climb on the transports to take them back to the main ship. They had just burned the bodies of his dead brothers, with Cody reading out each name with a steady yet melancholy voice as they were placed upon the pyres. He appreciated the villagers allowing them to use their funeral pyres, as they wanted to serve the clones in any way that they could for their bravery, watching with consoling eyes as they burned the dead. Cody’s become good at not breaking at the sight, already too used to the corpses of his dead _vode_ returning to ashes from where they were bred.

He shouldn’t be used to this. He shouldn’t be used to this at all.

Waxer and Boil provided a form of pillar for him, though. They rested their hands on the back of his chest plate and laid their heads against the plastoid of Cody’s shoulder pauldrons. Cody finds it easier to breathe with his closest _vode_ around, easing his mind and filling him with the memories of their younger days. When Cody met them in the mess hall back on Kamino, twins from a batch a year younger than him, Boil gruff and Waxer kindly, he immediately took them under his wing. He finds solace when he’s with them, and the pain of losing more and more brethren every day fades into the background. They are both by his sides when they enter the transport, with General Kenobi present behind. 

The briefing with the other generals on the holocommunicator was pretty tame despite the grim funerals taking place before. The ship had jumped to hyperspace around this time, the stars becoming white streaks against the windows of the deck, dousing the atmosphere in a wonderful teal. The meeting disbanded earlier than expected, as most of the briefings were of minor missions with little casualties compared to much dire situations. Commander Cody is about to return to the barracks for some much needed rest after the chaos of the day when General Kenobi turns to him. “Commander Cody, may I have a word?”

Cody blinks, fearing Obi-Wan was about to reprimand him for the use of his precious lightsaber. “Uh. Of course, General.” He retreats back to the shut off holocom, where the general is combing gentle fingers through his beard in thought.

Obi-Wan tucks his hands back together in a clasp in front of him. The expression on his face was one Cody had not expected to receive after his actions today — amusement with a glint of, if he can be sure, fascination and admiration. “I noticed your performance earlier. I can tell you, it was quite a shock to see my own commander taking on droids lightsaber in hand. My own lightsaber, no less.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Cody apologized, and he was about to explain the situation he had been trapped in for him to resort to such means when Obi-Wan shakes his head.

“Do not apologize, Commander.” His eyes gleam excitedly. “I am actually very impressed. Have you ever wielded a lightsaber before?”

“No, sir. I know close-combat and handling melee weapons, but other than that, I have no experience with one.”

“No wonder,” Obi-Wan hums. “Your swordwork is impressive. With the way you fight, I’m sure you can beat Master Windu in a duel.”

Cody doesn’t know how to react to the praise Obi-Wan showered in him, though he does manage to chuckle at the last comment. “I would have my _shebs_ kicked if I tried to fight Master Windu, General. But I appreciate the compliment.”

Obi-Wan shrugs, smiling at him kindly. “You never know, my dear Cody. I don’t think he will expect that move you pulled on that spider droid.”

“That droid was at waist level. General Windu is far from short.”

“But you are far from…”

Obi-Wan’s sentence dies on his tongue. Cody sends him a look, almost glaring at the general to complete his statement.

“Actually, I retract what I say. But as I said, your handle of a lightsaber is remarkable for someone with lack of experience. I could enroll you in Jedi training if I was able to.”

Cody shudders at the thought. “I think I’ll pass on that.”

“Whatever makes you feel comfortable, Commander. Are you heading back to get some rest now?”

“Of course. You should too. Fighting local warlords for the third instance in the course of a month is not a simple task.”

“I’ll be alright, Cody. You are dismissed.” Though his tone is reassuring, Cody is not at all fooled. He knows the general will be awake the whole night without a wink of sleep, and he will have to deal with the sight of Obi-Wan chugging the entire blend of caf when they awake in the morning back at Coruscant. But Cody’s too exhausted to reprimand him on his lies, opting to nod hesitantly. He’ll force him back to bed sometime in the near future, most likely the next night when Kenobi will yet again hold the same habits as the day before. Cody’s not judging him. He swears.

“If you say so, sir.” He pauses on his way out the door, craning his neck to look at General Kenobi. “And General?”

“Yes, Cody?”

“Don’t lose your lightsaber again,” Cody tells him. Followed by an unspoken: _or General Grievous won’t be the only thing giving you a concussion._

He can hear Obi-Wan’s laughter as he exits the deck of the ship. “I make no promises!” He knows that the commander is both as serious as he could possibly be while joking light-heartedly with him. The two of them have grown a little partnership since Cody was assigned to him, enough to be comfortable to speak with one another in a friendly sort. Cody, despite his exasperation with Obi-Wan’s habit of losing his only weapon on hand, holds some respect to his name. He’s a cunning warrior, and his strategies are nothing short of effective — albeit how his plans with General Skywalker by his side is enough to give Cody a massive headache more than paperwork itself. They had quips of banter with one another and worked as a team in threatening situations. However, if General Kenobi loses another lightsaber during a battle, the commander _will_ snap and start up some friendly fire on him.

When the doors shut behind him, he is about to make his way back to the barracks when he meets Waxer and Boil, no doubt eavesdropping on him and Obi-Wan’s conversation. He could see by their body language that they had been there the whole time. Cody sighs. He just couldn’t catch a break, couldn’t he?

“What do you boys want?” Cody asked them.

He’s answered with maniacal grins. Cody sighs again. Maybe he should have left them back on the village on that planet. But with a defeated exhale, he follows them out to the barracks, hoping to whatever god out there that he would survive the ordeal waiting to happen.

As he had dreadfully expected, the rumors began to circle once he was forced to tell Boil and Waxer the full story. When they had arrived back at Coruscant several hours after their departure, Cody saw the two men immediately book it towards the main barracks once they landed. Within the course of an hour the entire 212th knew of what happened back on the two-sunned planet, and within an hour Cody was subject to the stares of the men underneath his command, whispering to one another and even clapping him on the back in a sort of bravo. No amount of caf would have prepared him for this sudden chain of events. And it definitely was no help when the rumors began to stretch out from his respective battalion.

First victim, as was expected, was the 501st, who were stationed on Coruscant around that time as well. Since the two battalions were so intertwined with another that every 212th had a friend in the 501st, it was no surprise to Cody that the talk of his lightsaber endeavor had made its way to General Skywalker’s men first. When he had been walking around base, he was suddenly swarmed by troops in blue uniform, who dared to come close enough to watch him walk but not enough to approach him, as if he were some sort of angel among them. He could recognize two troops, Fives and Echo, two clones who Cody had met after their stationing on the Rishi Moon base. Echo had been tapping away at a datapad while Fives was talking about something with wild erratic movements when he caught sight of Commander Cody strutting down the hallway. The man was left frozen in the air. He had caught Echo’s attention as well — and when that boy was on a datapad, few things would make him look up from it — and he watched his eyes go wide upon seeing him. 

Cody, though he was so exasperated from the multitude of stares the 501st had been sending him, couldn’t help but play with their heartstrings a bit. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he nods to them. He finds some semblance of thrill when Echo drops his datapad to the ground, and Fives looks as if he’s trying to form a sentence with the lips of a gulping amphibian. Getting rookies all riled up was always one of his favorite tasks, but even with that out the way, that still didn’t save him from the stares of the much older of Torrent Company, faces aghast as he walked past each of their bunks.

It _definitely_ didn’t rescue him from the look of complete bewilderment Rex had possessed when he had entered his personal quarters to discuss with him the recent disappearance of General Grievous they had agreed to piece together, shooting up from his bunk to stare at his _ori’vod_. “You did not do that!” he yelled out.

“Do what?” Cody asks him, his voice drenched with the utmost sarcasm. The migraine is already inching away at him. “Leave? I’m about to.” 

To his unpleasant surprise, Rex did not allow him to leave until the interrogation of Cody’s well-being had been sufficiently complete.

The next to be alerted of his performance at the village was Plo’s own battalion, the 104th. Home to the Wolf Pack, which Cody visits at times to take his mind off things when the 212th and 501st were driving him crazy. Though Ghost Company and the Pack did not share the same amount of time together as much as Torrent, Cody sought sanctuary from them due to their close connectedness to one another and the presence of their commander, Wolffe, Cody’s own batchmate and his life blood (Rex was also Cody’s life blood, but after the captain had made him sit through question after question of what the _fuck_ was he thinking, he’s willing to trade). Of course the disease known as ‘Commander Cody wields General Kenobi’s lightsaber and manages not to die’ would hit them next.

He’s approached by Boost and Sinker when he enters their hangout spot, twins from a much younger batch, and they run up to him like excited cadets seeing a Jedi for the first time. Which Cody supposes he is at this point, because they ask him if he was able to do other things besides wield a lightsaber. Could he use the Force? Do a Jedi Mind Trick? Cody ages several years his senior from the barrage of jokes and questions that come his way. Just in the nick in time arrives Commander Wolffe, tall and brooding, one of the fiercest commanders in the GAR since the Malevolence event and even more so when he had lost his eye from the Battle of Khorm. He storms in and recognizes Cody in an instant, pulling back Boost and Sinker by the collar of their blacks.

“Enough, both of you,” he scolds at them like a wolf to its pups. Boost pouts while Sinker rolls his eyes to the back of his head, cut short of their investigation into the commander’s ability to sense enemies through echolocation. “Give the commander some space.” He sends them off to their sleeping quarters with a jabbing thumb in the direction, and watches them go with a glaring silver eye.

Cody lets out a sigh of relief, finally relieved from the grasps of two Wolf Pups and able to breathe the fresh air of freedom. “Thanks, _vod_.”

Wolffe nods at him. “It’s no problem.” Then comes the betrayal, when a wicked grin appears on his facade. “So, you a _Jetii_ now, eh?”

Cody stares at him for an ungodly amount of time, restraining from headbutting his older brother so far up the skull his eyes would pop out the other side. “I’m going to kill you.”

He did not, in fact, kill Wolffe. In fact, he had to tell Commander Wolffe the entire story of what had happened in explicit detail. While he spoke, Boost and Sinker had returned, this time with the other squad members of the Pack, consisting of Comet and Skull and Angel Eyes and more who stared at him with slack jaws and glittering irises. Cody suppresses the urge to jump out the nearest window, which would not even be possible with his _ori’vod_ ’s arm wrapped around his shoulders, keeping him from running away and savoring his time as a youth.

After that, the rumors spread _everywhere_. They made their way down to the 91st Mobile Reconnaissance Corps, up to the 41st Elite Corps, to fellow Commanders Bly, Fox, and Ponds, and even managed to reach the Jedi as well. The entire Republic Army was suddenly aware of the tale of how the clone commander of the 212th, against all odds, wielded a lightsaber despite no previous experiences with the weapon. Given, it was not as bad as Cody made it out to be — the most the clones did was approach him to ask about it or goggle at him from afar. But goodness, did it happen so quickly and go on for so long. By the end of the week, everyone was talking about it, and Cody wondered if it would be a good idea to pass on the title of commander to Boil and retreat to his quarters, where he would live the rest of his days in solitude and away from all the attention.

Cody didn’t like attention. Especially to this degree. Something about the scrutiny made his skin crawl, and though his brethren do not mean to make him uncomfortable, he walks with knives embedded into the soles of his feet. He could handle clankers coming at him from all sides and machine guns raining from the skies, but the amount of attention he had received since the battle was near impossible to bear. He was used to being ogled at by cadets and rookies, but this?

He doesn’t know why he’s so pushed to the edge about it. It wasn’t even that special — Commander Wolffe had survived the destruction of a ship and had his eye taken out by Ventress, and he had received the same amounts of praise Cody had. Rex experienced the same post-Blue Shadow Virus debacle. They seemed relatively fine by the attention. So why wasn’t Cody the same?

Such questions bouncing around in his brain made him seek out the comfort of his empty quarters, where he promptly buried his head in his pillow and took a nap for an hour. It had only felt like a minute had passed when he had dozed off, falling to a pleasant abyss that saved him from the exasperation of having to deal with the gossip of the clones. Then came a knock on his door. Cody groaned, groggy from a sudden nap that he had been consoled in up until that moment. He craned his neck to look at the closed door, bracing himself yet again for another rise of skeptics.

“Come in!” he yells out. The troops walk inside, and he’s greeted by the familiarity of fuzzy blond hair and a scar running through a cybernetic eye. He doesn’t know if he’s pleased or not to find Captain Rex and Commander Wolffe outside his quarters, but judging by their sympathetic expressions, he guesses he does find some comfort in it.

“Hey, _vod’ika_ ,” Wolffe says to him. He resorted to a more big-brotherly tone of voice, not at all like a near month ago when he had grinned with the mirth of a lynx when he was pressing Cody for his story. Him and Rex let the door close behind them, approaching Cody still facedown on his bed. “You doing okay?”

Cody answers with a pitiful groan.

Rex and Wolffe share a glance with one another before turning back to Cody. “You… want to talk about it?” Rex asks with a sense of hesitance.

Cody supposes he does after the discord happening the past week, and he shrugs for them to do what they want. Rex climbs over Cody’s legs and settles behind him, resting his head on the back of his blacks. Wolffe follows suit, opting to push the two back so he has room to lay down, and together they manage to sandwich Commander Cody between them. He doesn’t at all feel overwhelmed — this was more the type of attention he was comfortable with — and he melts into his brothers’ embrace, exhaling through his nose from the comfort of it all.

It reminds him of the night back at Kamino. The same day he had gotten the infamous scar across his face, a story that still managed to make him vomit to this day. That night, Cody was pulled into the warm arms of his batchmate and best friend, the two easing the hiccuping sobs that wretched from his torn throat as he lay in the capsule that acted as their sleeping space. He had clinged to them so tight he may have given them scars from his clipped fingernails, tears pooling on the sheets as he did so. Rex whispered comforting words to him as he cried. Wolffe was silent but had opted to run his hand through his _vod’ika_ ’s hair. It’s Cody’s worst memory while simultaneously one he finds comfort in from the aftermath.

“We’re sorry,” Wolffe tells him. His gruff voice snaps Cody back to the present. “I am, mostly. The 104th won’t bother you next time I see them.”

“I’ll convince Hardcase and Jesse to stop pestering you,” Rex tells him. “Pretty sure they knew they crossed the line when they charged at you with those plastoid sabers.”

Cody can’t help but chuckle. That was one of the only instances from the rumor circle that Cody avidly enjoyed. Well, afterwards. In the moment, Cody had been so startled by Jesse and Hardcase’s screaming of bloody murder waving fake blades that he had judo-flipped them simultaneously on instinct. Which then led to Cody apologizing to them aggrievedly, then to Hardcase and Jesse laughing so hard that he was afraid they were going to explode. Then Captain Rex approaching them and the two brothers having to explain why Commander Cody just nearly broke their arms. It was funny, but only in the aftermath.

“No, it’s alright,” Cody tells them both. He nuzzles his face into Wolffe’s chest. “I’m fine now. Just overwhelming, I guess. It’s like everyone at the GAR knows.”

“Everyone does know,” Wolffe corrects. Cody glares at him.

“Thanks, _vod_.”

“You should have said you were fed up with it,” Rex chastises him. “We didn’t know it was going to be _that_ bad.” He pauses. “Well, we did, but we didn’t know it was going to affect you this much.”

Cody sighs. “I don’t know. I think I’m just too exhausted from having to deal with General Kenobi dropping his only weapon for the third time in a month to having to deal with all my men on my _shebs_ just for using a lightsaber.”

“I mean…” Rex starts. “… it is a lightsaber.”

“Your own general’s lightsaber,” Wolffe adds.

“Which you’ve never used before.”

“And only Jedi and Sith use lightsabers—”

“Alright, I get it!” Cody huffs, much to Rex and Wolffe’s laughter. He can’t help soften though. Out of all the many _vode_ that took up the Republic army that he cared for with every bone in his body, Rex and Wolffe were who he was closest with. Him and Wolffe have been together since they were decanted back on Kamino, and been a part of the same squadron until they had been placed under the command of different Jedi generals. Cody had met Rex when he had found the younger in tears after being reprimanded by the long-necks, and the two had struck up a friendship automatically. Wolffe served as a protective older brother who was willing to beat up anyone daring enough to torment Cody, while Rex became a younger brother for Cody to find comfort in just as Rex did for him. He couldn’t ask for any better _vode_ , especially when faced with the threatening galactic conflict that brings down the many men Cody promises himself to look after.

“Sorry,” Wolffe cackles. “Hey, how about we make it up to you when me and Rex come back after our mission? 79’s? Heard they got a new special.”

Cody scoffs. “I don’t really like it there. Too many drunks. If I’m going to chug alcohol, I don’t want to wake up the next morning with a marriage certificate.”

“Honestly,” Rex agrees. “No offense, Wolffe. Besides, when you and the Wolf Pack go, the place will be destroyed by sunrise. They basically banned half of you.”

Wolffe grunts in answer. “‘s not my fault that Boost can’t hold his liquor. But I’m not surprised. _Cod’ika_ ’s too used to General Kenobi’s tea time.”

“For the last time,” Cody stresses, “it’s _not_ called tea time. And it’s not even that _bad_.”

“Really?” Wolffe asks him with a raised eyebrow. “Then why did I throw up afterwards, huh? Damn thing tasted like sour gundark.”

“You better not be speaking from experience,” Rex comments. The captain visibly recoils when Wolffe shoots him a grin. “Don’t. Don’t do that.”

“That is disgusting,” Cody says. “And you only threw up because you probably ate a gundark _right before_ you drank the tea.”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over Kenobi’s horrible tea.”

Cody rolls his eyes fondly and shifts to face upwards, with Rex relenting him some room to perform the maneuver. “Whatever you say, _ori’vod_.” They fall silent for a few peaceful moments, comforting the exhausted Cody who had begun to be stolen by the grips of slumber once again. Before he was pulled under tucked in the embrace of his brothers, however, Rex opened his mouth. “I know you’re tired and all about being asked about the… ya know. But can I ask you something?”

Cody already feels much better from their warm embraces. Despite how much the buzzing interviews annoyed the hell out of him the past week, he supposes he is obligated to answer more questions of the experience. Besides, it’s Rex. “Shoot.”

“What was it like?” Rex asks him. “Using a lightsaber?”

Cody doesn’t really have an answer. Or he does, but there are many and they are so scattered all around in his head that he fears that he cannot speak them without another one popping up in his head. How _did_ it feel? When gripping the weapon General Kenobi had dropped, he could only hear his heart pounding in his head and the adrenaline course through his veins, the need for survival running through his entire body. But those feelings were present for all of his experiences out on the field, with and without a lightsaber in hand. It helps a little that Cody prefers close combat versus long-range fire, as he is able to be more active and take down enemies with focuses that stretch beyond good aim. It allowed for him to express his agility and cunning in ways a blaster never could.

But there was something _different_ when he had held that lightsaber in his hand. Something that gave him a thrill, when he was deflecting fire and slicing off heads, in the heat of the battle. The handle of the saber was lightweight and filled him with a sort of emotion that no other weapon could be able to offer him. Though the blade was not one to be considered _his_ (and it had felt like that, as if the saber let itself be used only under Cody’s silent oath that it would be returned to its true master) it felt almost _right_ to hold it.

He can’t say that. No, he can’t even _feel_ that way. Cody was no Jedi, no matter how long he’s held a lightsaber or how long he can take a stand against the _beskar’ade_ . He was not Force-sensitive, as far as he was concerned, and he held no desire to be taken under the watchful gaze of the _Jetiise_ back at the Coruscant Temple. It’s not that he hates the Jedi, no, far from it. But he also thinks that if being with Generals Kenobi and Skywalker in the same room drove him insane, then being stuck with them _and_ the Council would no doubt be a form of suicide. He prefers to be with his brethren, his _vode_ , where he would fight alongside them and keep them alive to the best of his ability.

So in answer to Rex’s dire question, Cody shrugs. “Pretty light. Not much to it.”

His _vode_ don’t seem convinced by his response, but they already know that Cody already had enough on his plate, so they do not question him. “Oh, _Cod’ika_ ,” Wolffe guffaws. “You really need to stop being modest all the time. You took down half a clanker platoon! Heard that General Skywalker’s been talking non-stop about it. I think he’s jealous of you.”

Cody blinks. “Skywalker? Jealous?” 

“Yeah, and General Plo keeps on gushing about you. Even asked me if you were interested in becoming his Padawan.”

Cody shudders. “Please, no.” He held no animosity towards the Kel Dor Jedi — in fact, he took a liking to him for his kindness and thoughtfulness regarding the men under his command — but the thought of becoming a Padawan brought a sick feeling to his stomach. “I’m fine as marshall commander, thank you.”

“If you say so,” Wolffe huffs. 

Rex is still frowning at Cody’s answer, and knowing his _vod_ , Cody would have to deal with the younger approaching him to ask about it later. He was always so inquisitive, despite being the quietest compared to the others of the trio. But even with his skepticism, Rex relents to his response and tucks his head above Cody’s shoulder. Cody raises a hand to fondle his younger brother’s shaven head while he leans into Wolffe’s embrace. He’ll have to prepare for that later, but right now, all Cody wants to do is once again fall into the sweet abyss of sleep. And for once, the galaxy complies with his wishes, and he rests once more in the comfort of his brothers.

That night he dreams of phantoms racing across the sky, spiders crawling up his arms and choking him as they enter his mouth. He dreams of rivers of scarlet fire lapping at his feet, of the cries of his men that are silenced by the sudden activation of an all too familiar weapon. Of the crimson staining his rotting skin that is left nude in a land of darkness, and the tremble of his body as he feels his flesh being pierced by an indescribable heat—

He wakes up in the pitch black height of midnight, droplets of sweat coursing down his forehead, breath as wild and erratic as when he had taken on those clankers with nothing left to lose but his barren head. He grasps around for his brothers, Rex and Wolffe, but finds empty space save for the covers of his bed. Right. They were both being deployed on a mission around evening, and had visited Cody before they left. Cody was completely alone in his personal quarters, gripping the sheets as if that would ease the tension that gagged him in his slumber. Alone, save for the shadows that creep along the walls. Spiders, crawling across the ceiling that hangs like an omen above him.

When he falls back asleep, it is to the intense clash of a pair of lightsabers. When he awakes the next morning for a briefing with General Kenobi, his ears are still ringing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translations:  
> beskar’ad(e) - droid(s)  
> vod(e) - sibling(s)  
> kles - nose  
> shebs - backside, rear, buttocks  
> ori’vod - older sibling  
> jetii(se) - jedi  
> vod’ika - younger sibling
> 
> my tumblr is valdaluv if you all want to see me scream about the clones.


	2. morning skies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He freezes in place, confusion splayed over his hidden face. The commander looks down at his feet to find the source of the hit and he is met with the sight of… General Kenobi’s lightsaber. 
> 
> You have got to be fucking kidding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter sucks lmao, but at least i'm establishing a few things before i get deep in the story? the next few chapters are going to kill me and you, i promise. for now just have cody being a badass. and happy. please tell me if there are any typos because i don't have a beta reader for some god-awful reason.
> 
> also trans clones! i need them.
> 
> mando'a translations at the bottom!

It was only fate that just when the gossip died down concerning the lightsaber incident a month back that Cody would once again wield the goddamn weapon.

He can’t say he’s any surprised. Due to Kenobi’s light-hearted response to his extremely serious threat against his well-being if he ever dropped his lightsaber again, he had been already dreading the next instance that no doubt would occur. The man was a natural at losing his lightsaber; it could be considered an _occupation_ at this point. The commander had already been expecting to wrap his hands around the familiar hilt by the time of their deployment. When he and Rex had boarded the fleet alongside each other with his general leading the way, he knew it was practically inevitable that it would happen a second time.

The day had started like this: Cody was awoken to the songs of chirping avians outside his quarters on the base of the planet they were currently holed up in. They were once again chasing after the deadly General Grievous, who had gone missing after a skirmish around a nearby planet. They had traced him down to the grassy world, which was full of many Republic outposts ripe for the taking when it came to the nimble Separatist commander and a fleet at his disposal. Commander Cody had blinked the sleep from his eyes when gazing out the window of the barracks him and his troops resided in, the sun beginning its ascension over the horizon as a small herd of herbivores went on their daily routine. The scent of fresh meat and other rations his men outside were cooking up billowed through the air, fully awaking the commander from his dreamless rest. He did his morning stretches and pulled on his golden-white armor before exiting the barracks to where breakfast was being served. He allowed the remaining of his slumbering troopers some more moments of rest before they would have to make their way to Grievous’ next whereabouts.

The cook of the day was Nikita, a year younger than he was with scarlet locks and honey brown eyes, who offered him his plate of rations with a kind smile. Cody nodded back in gratitude to the younger and settled down on a nearby log, observing the rolling plains that stretched out for miles. The grasslands were the color of tangerine and the lakes that rested far beyond an incline of hills shimmered jade green in the sunlight, the sun dousing the sky in a peachy violet as it crawled its way across the gray mountains beyond. Cody breathed in the fresh morning air as he took a small bite of his roasted meal, commenting afterwards to Nikita on her growing talent for cooking. This planet had endured countless conflicts even before the war had made its way out to its green-infested lands, but the scenery was a rare sight to behold that Cody cherished as much as he could muster.

Just when Cody was having a pleasant morning, Captain Rex had arrived from the barracks hosting Torrent Company, looking just swell for breakfast. He walks with a groggy manner, eye bags prominent though he retained much of a normal sleep schedule, the permanent scowl on his facade indicating that he had not yet drinken his caf intake. “Mornin’, Rex ol’ Boy,” the older greets him. Rex holds his hand up in a _wait_ signal without even looking at him, causing his brother to chuckle at his behavior. Since they had long known each other, Rex was the complete opposite of a morning person. It was a difficult task trying to converse with him before he’s had a mug of caf unless you were looking for a way to die prematurely. Cody, as always, was the exception to this rule, as he knows that Rex is too soft on him, and Cody could kick his ass right back.

Rex sits next to him with a pre-prepared mug of coffee and a bowl of grounded meat, and he’s already ounces through the cup before Cody could even blink. Cody looks down at the drink with amusement. “You’re up early.”

“ _Ne’johaa_ ,” Rex mutters. Cody chuckles once more. He nearly chastises Rex for using the word despite him being the sole reason for the captain’s knowledge of its meaning, but he decides that his _vod’ika_ deserves some peace of quiet, and finishes up the scarlet strips of meat on his plate before moving to the eggs.

It’s been around five weeks since Cody had wielded General Kenobi’s sacred weapon and the talk surrounding it had calmed down considerably. He could finally breathe freely in public spaces especially with the help of Wolffe, who felt obligated to stare down every clone who looked at Cody for more than the five-second maximum. Cody was no longer as annoyed and exasperated as he had been around the first week since the incident, though he does find some humor in seeing his siblings book it whenever his batchmate so much as _snarls_ at them. He’s equipped with a new blaster rifle and Kenobi had offered to spot-check his helmet for any more damages. Nowadays the only people ogling him were the shinies entering the 212th for the first time. Everything was relatively normal now.

For the most part at least. Cody’s mind wanders off during his downtime back to that village, where his strikes of a sky-colored blade were ruthless and swift. The weight of the weapon so feathery and slender had been so new, so _enticing_ , that he almost discarded his new blaster in favor of a vibroblade just to feel it once more. With his signature blaster rifle destroyed and replaced, and having experienced fighting with a lightsaber for the first time, it definitely took some time for the foreign feeling of holding a gun in his hand to fade away.

Cody quickly nudged these thoughts to the back of his head. He was practical to a fault, and often weighed any issue offered to him as a problem in need of definite solution, calculating everything he did from the words he spoke to the actions he performed. It’s what made him stand out to many. He was praised by both his superiors since he was a cadet for his ground in reality — as such, he knew it was pretty stupid to think that he would use a lightsaber in situations other than life-threateningly dire.

He’s a clone, no matter his appearance or rank. There’s not really much there besides that.

“Any updates on Grievous?” Rex asks him, looking in much better shape after he had consumed his breakfast with the mug of caf. He appeared much more energized, and the scowl on his facade dimmed just enough to where Cody recognized him much better.

Cody shakes his head. “Only woke up a few minutes before you. But after you clocked out last night I overheard the generals talking. Saying that Grievous had plans to overtake an outpost sometime today.”

Rex sighs. “It hasn’t even been a _year_ and I’m already tired of playing tag with him. I don’t know how he isn’t dead yet.”

Cody places his empty plate by the bonfire for the others to pick up and discard, beginning to brew a small cup of tea with a mixture he had picked up a while ago. It’s a little bitter when he takes a sip of the drink, but it’ll do for now. “I don’t know either. All I know is that he’s really pissing me off.”

General Grievous was pissing everyone off. Ever since his skirmish with several Jedi Knights on Hypori, the looming weight of his presence was like a billowing shadow over the GAR. The Separatist general had been responsible for deaths of at least dozens of Jedi Generals since his sudden introduction, collecting their precious blades and Padawan blades as spoils of war or horrid trinkets for his personal collection. The thing that Cody was most horrified of was the death tolls of clones whom Grievous had encountered in the past months; there could not be an exact number, but with every massacre of the siblings he’s grown up since he was decanted, there’s a bitter taste in his mouth at even the uttering of that _bastard’s_ name. The monster had been only one step close to murdering the rest of his brothers on Kamino back during the invasion on the Rishi Moon. He had not yet fought against Grievous personally, but he’s already heard enough to hold a strong vendetta against him.

“I feel you there, brother,” Rex mutters. “I wish he didn’t land on this planet in particular. This place’s too open, he could have escaped by now.”

“Don’t worry,” Cody tells him. “General Kenobi told me after this attempt we’ll head straight back to Coruscant to rest. We’ll save his capture for next time.”

“Will we ever?” Boil interjects. He perched on another log with Waxer by his side, his empty plate hanging dangerously lopsided on his lap. “Capture him, I mean. The man’s like a viper. By the time we think we’ve reached him, he’ll already be halfway ‘cross the outer rim.”

“Boil’s right,” Waxer agrees. He’s occupied playing with a small sticker above the visor of his bucket, a turquoise-skinned Twi’lek girl that Cody recognized as the one him and Boil had taken care of back during the incursion on Ryloth. The man had made sure to keep it sticking to his helmet through any means necessary even after the destruction of the Separatist blockade on the planet, and the battles that have erupted since then. “He keeps on getting away.”

“Well, we have to have some ounce of hope if we’re going to make it through this bloody war,” Rex tells them.

“Weren’t you the one complaining about him?” Boil asks.

“Just because I am annoyed with him doesn’t mean I’m giving up trying to snap his neck.”

At Rex’s comment, the three of them laugh, with Boil holding up his mug of caf in agreement. More troops had arrived at breakfast from the comfort of their quarters, taking Nikita’s plates of ground meat and eggs and rubbing the drowsiness from their eyes. Though Cody notices, with a huff, that the rest of the clones deployed on the mission were still missing from their morning grub. “I’ll be right back,” Cody says, finishing up his cup of tea and placing it by his discarded plate, making his way down to the sleeping quarters of the remainders of Ghost Company. He can barely make out Rex voicing the same excuse before he ducked into the metallic gray building housing the bunks for the other soldiers. There are a few left still getting their shut-eye, snoring loudly with their limbs hanging off the beds as they slept. Cody rolls his eyes at their tardiness.

“Sunrise, gentlemen!” Cody yells out. His voice easily shifts to the commanding tone he was known for, boisterous and echoing. In an instant the troops awaken and shoot up from their mattresses, one even bonking their head on the hull of the bunk above their own. Their eyes snap wide open and their necks swivel towards their commander, who bit back a smile at their now active forms. “Breakfast time! Get your buckets on, all of you! We got a big day ahead of us! Up and moving!” They crawl and tumble out from beneath their bedsheets, cursing beneath their breaths before pulling on their plates of armor. They quickly salute at Cody before sprinting outside to get the rest of the morning grub. Cody watches each of them leave, amusement glinting in his irises.

He catches eye of the last troop in the barracks, wide awake yet fumbling with his shoulder pauldron that refused to snap in place. Cody approaches the younger clone and sits by his bedside, adjusting the pauldron before fastening it tight. The clone, who Cody easily recognized as Wooley, flushes in embarrassment. “Thank you, sir,” he squeaks.

“You know, I’m starting to believe you have two left hands,” Cody chuckles, and his _vod’ika_ ’s tenseness dissipates as a smile edges its way out from his hiding place. “You get that pauldron spot-checked?”

“No, sir,” Wooley responds. “I think I’m just bad with armor in general.”

Cody chuckles. “You’ll get used to it. Most troops your age have a hard time with their own armor. You wanna know something? See the Captain out there, talkin’ with Wax and Boil?”

Wooley follows where the commander was pointing with a thumb. “Uh, yeah.”

“Back on Kamino, every time he had to do a sim, he would complain about a loose shin guard. Said it was falling off the whole time when he was running. Didn’t matter how many times he had it spot-checked, or even replaced — every single time he went out there, he would fuss about his shin guard.”

“Oh my stars.”

“Quiet, rookie. So, my batch’s watching over one of the training exams. Blood pumping, blaster shots flying everywhere. It’s the heat of the moment. I see Rex taking the lead, getting his squad all riled up. They’re almost to the checkpoint. You want to guess what happened?”

Wooley’s face was beaming. “His shin guard fell off?”

“His shin guard fell off.”

Wooley burst into a fit of laughter, eyes crinkling with glee that shifted the large tattoo he had recently inked across the left side of his head, each line bold as it traveled from his temple down beneath the creases of his eye bags. “What happened after? Did he get in trouble?”

“Nah,” Cody says. “Just fastened it back on and continued on to the checkpoint. But let me tell you, he was as red as Mustafar when he got back.”

Wooley descended into another fit of laughs, in absolute disbelief of the wild story of the officer of the 501st yet not doubting him a second. Cody enjoyed speaking with the shinies and rookies of the 212th, especially Wooley. He had been assigned to Ghost Company the day they had deployed for their attack on Ryloth, and Cody had grown an immediate fondness for the younger trooper. He was always so optimistic and compassionate, and he always brought a cheery and jovial aura with him whenever he entered a room. He certainly brought a smile to the commander’s face when they spoke, even in the darkest of times. Besides, he was one of Cody’s main guys to dispense embarrassing stories concerning his fellow officers. Wooley knew how to keep a secret or two.

“I’ll make sure to keep my shins in check,” Wooley promised when he had finally relaxed from his snickering. “And my pauldrons. And everything.”

“Nah, just the pauldron is good.” Cody gives him a hard slap on the back. “Now, c’mon! You’ll be picking at crumbs by the time you get your grub. Vexer’s already on his second bowl of fruit.”

Wooley groans. “Vexer!”

He grabbed his bucket that lay beside him on the bed and dashed outside to where the other troops were huddled around, and Cody spares a small chuckle watching him go. He is about to follow the rookie out of the barracks when he slows to a stop at his bunk, noticing something he had not been aware of before. There was a slight elevation beneath the sheets, rectangular, and Cody pulls back the covers to reveal the datapad he had been tapping away at last night. Cody frowns, wondering how he had managed to miss it when he was crawling out of bed. He fixes the covers over his bunk as he takes up the datapad with careful fingers.

When he unlocks it, he is greeted to the sight of the document software the datapad possessed when he had first received it. He used the pad for just about everything — mission logs, holonet browsing, occasional weird holovids that Longshot recommends him (once he had followed a link given to him which was actually for a porn site, which led to Cody chucking his datapad at the closest wall and nearly strangling Longshot to death). But the document he had been working on last night took no form of paperwork or any of that sort. In fact, he was treated to the sight of a series of verses organized into several clumps. Lyrics. Right.

He could remember still having a little bit of energy left in last night combined with the sudden dose of inspiration to write, laying down on his bunk and taking out his datapad when he had made sure his _vode_ were asleep. He had been motivated by their arrival to the planet in pursuit of Grievous, the rolling plains of orange and jade and the mountains that fell off in sheer cliff sides out in the horizon. His hands had flown on their own on the screen, beginning to start yet another song that no doubt would either be finished tonight if Cody felt like it or forgotten for around a cycle, before Cody would return to it again or discard of it entirely. The lyrics were written in Mando’a, Cody’s main go-to whenever he composed songs. He rarely ever used Basic for these types of things. 

He finds that the song he had been writing was not as bad as he had initially feared — or at least he thought so. He’s kept this habit to himself and was not about to share it with anyone. As Cody read over the words he had written the night before, he heard someone call his name from outside the barracks.

“Commander!” It was Rex, standing at the entrance of the sleeping quarters with his mouth pulled into a frown and his hands on his hips. Cody sighs, shutting off the tablet and placing it atop of his bunk.

“Sorry, got a little sidetracked,” Cody explains when he approaches Rex, who does not seem convinced at all by his response. He leans towards Cody with a suspicious gaze, crossing his arms stubbornly.

“That’s weird. As far as I can tell, you hardly get distracted. You hidin’ something?”

Cody answers by slapping his hand on Rex’s face and pushing his head away. “None of your concern, _Rex’ika_.”

“Hey!” Rex yells, muffled by Cody’s hand. He swats away his older’s wrist, scowling at him in annoyance. “Well, if you’re done standing around, the generals just came back from their scouting. Got a message that Grievous had hijacked a base at the other end of those mountains.”

“Fun.” Cody cracks his neck side-to-side as they return to their troops, where the members of Ghost and Torrent Company were lined up in preparation for their next move. Skywalker and Kenobi are speaking with one another in front of the rows of clones, deep frowns etched into their weary facades from hours of scouting. Cody joins Kenobi’s side and nods respectively when the concerned frown on his general’s face is replaced by a pleasant smile. 

“How was your morning, Commander?” Obi-Wan inquires. Cody shrugs.

“Pretty good. But I have a feeling that it’ll be better when we finally catch that bucket of bolts.” Obi-Wan chuckles at the comment, his hands folded behind his back as he surveys all the chattering clones gathered in front of him. “You?”

“Well, I just had my cup of caf and I can say I am doing rather well. Are you and your troops ready to go?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. Gentlemen!” Obi-Wan’s voice is not at all like Cody’s voice when it shouts orders. With Cody, his voice is like piercing steel, gathering the attention not just of allies but his adversaries as well. Kenobi, in contrast, still held the formality and grace he sustained whenever he spoke. Despite that, his commanding tone did not fail in rallying his men and snapping them to focus. “Let us move out! Grievous won’t be staying here for very long.”

The troops scatter towards where the LAATs were stationed. Kenobi’s debrief was simple and to the point: they would fly over the Republic base and be dropped off at the entrances of the complex, where they would march in and retake it from the Separatist forces. Cody boarded one of the gunships alongside Rex, equipping his sunbonnet and latching onto one of the leather loops above his head. Waxer and Boil take their place behind the two of them while Wooley hangs out by Cody’s side. Next to Rex, Cody could recognize the familiar cerulean paint job of Fives and Echo. Finally the two Jedi Generals boarded the transport, and it began its departure for the Republic base at the other side of the clump of mountains.

“Doin’ alright, rookie?” Cody calls over to Wooley when they reach level above the mountaintops, their snowcaps stretching out for a klick or more. The kid gives him an energetic thumbs up, already vibrating with excitement to once again be out on the field. Cody turns to Rex. “How bout you, _vod_?”

“I’m good.” The captain pauses, and Cody suspects he’s scowling beneath his bucket, the younger staring at his leg guards and checking the plastoid latches.

“Something wrong?”

“No, it’s nothing,” Rex says. “Shin guard feels a little loose though.”

Cody, having mastered hiding his true emotions, fortunately did not cackle like an absolute idiot upon Rex’s statement. He did, however, grin beneath his bucket when he heard Wooley hide his laughter beneath a horridly fake cough. Rex tilted his head to fix an unseen puzzled look on the rookie, but Cody shakes his head to drift his attention away. No way was he about to let his _vod’ika_ be some food for the hound — not until he’s told him all his embarrassing Clone Cadet Rex stories. “Don’t worry about him. You’re good, right Wooley?”

“Yes, sir!” His voice is strung embarrassingly tight. 

“See, says he’s fine.” His cheeks hurt from how much the shit-eating grin under his bucket stretches from ear to ear. He could still glimpse Wooley next to him, shoulders shaking from his quiet snickering, of which Rex tilts his head at with even more suspicion. Cody nudges the shiny by the elbow, and he quickly shuts back up.

  
  


There were several things that went wrong when the transports landed at the base at the foot of the tall mountains, right by the lakeside.

First of all, General Grievous _wasn’t even here_ . He had apparently already taken one of the only ships in the hangar and was off the planet by the time they had touched down on the other side of the mountain pass. There was no sign of him anywhere — what _was_ waiting for the two companies in the officer’s stead was a couple dozens of battle droids, blasters lifted towards the transports and already releasing heavy fire the mere second they popped over the top of the cliffs.

Secondly was that the message that had been sent to General Kenobi alerting them of Grievous’ attack on the outpost was fake. Or rather, fake in terms of time. Grievous had scourged the complex in the night with reinforcements before they had a chance to warn anyone, ordering the Separatist reinforcements stationed on the planet to take control and send a false signal for help the next morning. The Republic officers that had been stationed at the outpost were either dead or kidnapped for Grievous to bring to the Seppie fleet for interrogation.

Finally, and the most horrific of the three wrongs that had occurred in the night, was the massacre of the clones the night before.

When Cody and Rex with several other soldiers managed to blast through the ranks of droids to make it inside of the base, the wind in Cody’s lungs was knocked out by the sight. He felt as if he couldn’t breathe, his ribcage constricted so tight around his still heart. Next to him, Rex was frozen in place. Echo had gasped so loud that Fives had clung to his twin instinctively, holding him in place to keep Echo upright or to keep himself from falling apart. Because around them, discard across the rails of the stairs leading up to the terminals above and scattering the steel floor below, were the mangled bodies of their _vode_ , strewn about like rag dolls.

One of their brothers was impaled by a sharp rod of steel right through the visor where his right eye had been, pinned up on a nearby wall with feet dangling limp in the air. Another one, a sister, was fully decapitated with her head discarded right by her fragile body, long raven hair concealing her glazed eyes. Everywhere Cody looked were the dead bodies of clones — two troops cut in half by the waist, a squadron embedded with several gaping holes from blaster fire, a shiny’s skull was crushed beneath his severely dented helmet. Cody surveyed how much damage had been caused inside of the base, and his head throbbed with the agony. 

How many? How many brethren had Grievous killed?

Cody did the mental math. He stopped counting when he had reached the double digits, stomach filling with a bitter acid and mouth turning dry. He glances over to Rex, and though he could not see his facial expressions, he could hear the captain cursing at the horrific display. He placed a hand on his _vod’ika_ ’s shoulder, feeling it tense beneath his touch. Cody did not say anything because he did not even know how to comfort _himself_ in the situation.

It wasn’t the worst bloodfest he’s been to. He’s seen more brethren bathed in blood. But despite that knowledge, bile rose in his throat without his consent as he stepped over one of the corpses, throat slit along the collar of their blacks. He tried to focus instead on the many droids who were occupying the space, who had taken notice of the group of clones and, after a few moments of confusion, began to fire at them. They all ducked for hiding positions behind several crates, with Echo and Fives sniping the droid forces to keep them at bay. Rex unsheathed a grenade attached to his leg and threw it at the entrance still swarming with _beskar’ade_ , the bomb detonating when it hit their metallic hides. Left within the ranks outside was a clear path for the Jedi and their soldiers to make their way through.

General Skywalker took advantage of it, and with the others of Torrent Company, entered the base and brought the battle with them, and a flurry of blaster fire erupted in the area. Cody unholsters his own blaster as he ducks from his cover, and begins the steady process of taking back the outpost from the hands of the Separatists.

He ducked beneath the blue and crimson shots of both sides, dodging each one he caught in the peripheral of his eye, bludgeoning any clanker that came his way. The _beskar’ade_ had begun to fall in dozens, but those outside that were currently being dealt with General Kenobi and Ghost Company were being pushed back, and had begun to fire on the rest of the men in blue. The cavernous space that was the Republic outpost hosted a walkway above, led to by a staircase and leeching off into three platforms with the middle the largest. Standing on the middle walkway were a tactical droid and a Separatist commander watching the battle unfold below, several guards surrounding them. General Skywalker was about to forge ahead and attack them when he was surrounded by several IG-100 MagnaGuards, silver spears crackling with violet electricity. Grievous’ leftovers. Responsible for half of the slaughter of the troops the night before.

General Kenobi and the rest of the 212th enter the complex, and the Jedi Master went to aid his former Padawan against the MagnaGuards while the troops joined their brethren. Rex circles around to Cody, the two of them dodging the shots of the snipers above. Several were stationed on the walkway running across the complex, downing clones one by one, far too nimble to be taken down from the ground.

“We won’t be getting anywhere with those clankers up above,” Rex growls. He aims at the sniper who had taken a nearby troop in a headshot, but he misses when it ducks behind the railing. “Skywalker and Kenobi are too busy. You think you can go up there while I help them?”

“On it!” Cody roundhouses two gaining droids at his flank before advancing towards the staircase up ahead leading up to the platform above, eyes fixated on the snipers raining hell on the troops. He’s about to climb up the stairs when something clunks against the back of his helmet.

He freezes in place, confusion splayed over his hidden face. The commander looks down at his feet to find the source of the hit and he is met with the sight of… General Kenobi’s lightsaber. _You have got to be fucking kidding._

Cody ages several years in the moment that he carefully cradles up the hilt of the saber, looking over to the battle to ensure Kenobi hadn’t been killed for it to end up by his boots. He exhales in relief when he sees that the general was alright and not as weaponless as expected. He had taken hold of one of the MagnaGuards’ electrostaffs, and with proficiency, began to defend himself against their surrounding forces. General Skywalker was by his side as well, aiding Obi-Wan while simultaneously taking down his own batch of guards. Cody is sure that General Kenobi will be alright for the rest of the battle, so he clips the lightsaber to his belt before charging up the stairs. He ponders on getting the general a strap for the blade in compensation for his lack of a grip.

When he had reached the top of the walkway, he was greeted to the sight of two of the snipers, aiming their rifles straight at his head. Shit.

Calculating each move in his head, he barrels the one on the right to catch it off-guard and shoots at the other in the eye, the clanker stumbling back and falling over the railing with a mechanical blood-curdling scream. The droid knocked to the floor recovers and aims its sniper rifle at his head, but he swats it out of its hand and kicks its head clean off. He ignores the throbbing of his feet from punting it against the harsh metal and advances towards the next set of snipers stationed across the left walkway of the facility. 

He had taken down three of them when the other droids had taken a late notice to his presence. They shifted their concentration from the Republic troops below and began to fire straight at Cody. Cody quickly ducked their shots, performing a swiping kick on the last sniper he had been dealing with, who fell and smashed into the facility floor below. He crawled over behind the lifeless hull of a decapitated droid as quick as he could manage. The _ram’sere_ on the right side of the walkway had ceased fire when he had hid, and he leaned from behind the droid to land a shot on the clankers from behind the cadaver — unfortunately, one of them had anticipated the hit.

He curses loudly when a blaster shot comes into contact with the wrist of his hand situated near the muzzle of the gun. He reeled back and pressed himself against the railing of the platform, hiding once more behind the deactivated sniper, the pain a burning discomfort against his flesh. He cradled his hand to his chest, gritting his teeth from the agony. It had scraped through a layer of his skin, not enough to put his hand out of commission but burning like hell nonetheless. To make things even better, the pain had forced him to lose grip on his blaster rifle, and he watched with dreadful horror as it fell from his hands into the raging skirmish below. So that’s how Kenobi feels.

He takes the risk to glimpse at the snipers, who had returned to fire on the people below, believing that they had incapacitated the commander enough for him not to be a threat anymore. Cody glances down at his belt, General Kenobi’s lightsaber hanging from his hip, gleaming mockingly at him. Oh no, he was not going to do this again. He wanted to use one of the dismantled clankers’ rifles but he found that they were all missing as well, having been kicked out of their hands and to the ground below. He could easily retreat downstairs and grab one of the blasters there.

Then he sees his men, his _brothers_ down below, falling in dozens from the fire of the snipers, victory beaming in their triumphant voices that are snuffed out like a candle’s flame. The clones who had been killed in the dead of night, the numbers of them increasing as more and more soldiers fall. He doesn’t have the time to go there and get another weapon, not when he has one right at his disposal. With most of them clones below too busy to aid him on the task, he makes up his mind. 

Cody stuffs down the nightmares that arise from the depths of his mind when he unclips the lightsaber from his belt. He activates it and the sky blue rises to life, buzzing with pure undying energy reflected across his visor. Cody takes a deep breath, forgetting the _rivers of blood that coursed through black lands, of skies shrouded in darkness and pure crystal clashing against one another_ , and leaps from his small sanctuary to take on the rest of the snipers.

They are certainly caught off-guard when the clone commander charges at them with an actual lightsaber. He decapitates the nearest one stationed by the stairs and deflects their blaster fire, advancing towards them. With a blaster, it would have taken several shots to incapacitate them; with a lightsaber, they fall like snow to the ground, torso cut from hips and necks split open. Cody slices off the muzzle of a rifle and pierces the clanker’s head with the saber, slicing down its body to dice it in half and readies himself for another one incoming. The _ram’sere_ were finished with, all that was left being their smoking hulls cut into pieces. Cody then pivoted and ran to the staircase, where he was promptly stopped by two of the four guard droids on the platform, who had taken notice of him once he had dispatched of all the snipers. Serving as a last resort defense, they stood at the center walkway, their large dispositions taking up the width of the platform.

“ _Stop here if you wish to live_ ,” they both spoke in unison, their voices static and deep. They carried no blasters, their weapons manifesting in the form of their arms that blazed with crackling electricity, whirring to life at their sides. Their bile-colored finish gleams in the fluorescents of the base. Cody backs up to the first steps of the descending staircase as they neared, weighing his options.

It’s either that he fights them head on as hard as he can or let these guards take on the rest of his company with Rex and their Jedi caught in the fire, and concerning the battle still flaring beneath him, it would be fatal. He takes a glance downstairs, and he finds that the numbers of droids were not yet small enough for the Republic to gain victory. If Cody wants to stop their assault and free the outpost, he’ll have to continue on his assault.

His gaze shifts to one of the dead clones from the massacre that night slumped against the nearby railing, a hole pierced through the visor of their bucket. The sight is enough to steel his resolve, and his blood surges. Exhaling, he ducks the swing of a robotic arm and begins his charge.

Cody rolls to the right of the droid who swung at him, before vaulting to his feet and kicking at the droid. It does not knock him back (in fact, it hurts the commander a lot more than the droid taking the hit) but it does dislocate its balance. Cody quickly took advantage of the opening the guard has left, and slices through its abdomen in a clean swipe. Its torso falls to the ground below, its malfunctioning voice box resembling one of a shriek as it hits the floor. The other one swings at him with arms pulsating with voltage, sizzling the air around them. Cody dodges and tucks himself into a ball, rolling between the droid’s open legs. When he rises back up, he moves his arm upwards with him, vertically dividing the clanker into symmetrical halves. Cody then begins a sprint down the walkway to where the rest were stationed, the narrow passageway opening up to a large platform hosting a terminal. The two remaining guards stood in front of their superiors, eyes trained on him.

The two had stayed behind for a reason. Their armor was much bulkier and sturdier than the other two, painted a shade of horrid orange in contrast to the blue lighting of the computer screen. They did not charge at him, expecting for Cody to enact the first strike. Unfortunately for them, the commander had anticipated that as well. When he rushed at them and they aimed to swipe at his head, he fell into a slide beneath their punches. 

He swerved on his knees to face their behinds, clasping his lightsaber in a reverse-grip similar to how Padawan Tano wielded hers. He swiped at one of the guard’s feet, right where its ankles were, and the top portion of its body tumbled off its feet with a swift shove. Even on the ground it was still functional, and jabbed at Cody’s leg with electricity, causing the commander to cry out before he plunged his blade into its left eye socket. The guard droid deactivates immediately, and the electricity against Cody’s leg halts to a stop.

Cody had no time to relish in the victory. He dodges two swings at his head that near decapitate him if it wasn’t for his swiftness. This guard was possibly the smartest one out of the bunch, and Cody spent a fair amount of time ducking each of its rapid strikes. He sliced off one of its arms but it retaliated by delivering a heavy kick to his gut, sending him flying to the edge of the platform. Cody hit the ground with a curse, nearly losing his bucket in the process. For a moment he was granted peace when the droid advanced to finish him off, remaining arm whizzing violent and rapid until it became a blur. Wires buzzed as it did so, the stench of overheating evident in the sizzling air. Cody waits for the droid to come as close as possible before kicking as hard as he could at its chest.

The _beskar’ad_ wobbles off-balance from the impact while Cody used the momentum of the kick to get back on his feet, and wasted no time in cutting off its remaining arm and decapitating it. It stumbled on its mindless feet for a few moments before it crumpled to the ground, the cavity in its neck from the absence of a head crackling with blue.

Cody only spares a glance towards the tactical droid and the Separatist officer by its side at the terminal before charging at them. With labored breaths and shielded eyes of golden daggers, he speared the tactical droid right in the side, the saber cutting through easily and embedding itself in the screen of the computer as well. It sputtered for a few moments and darkened in unison with the eyes of the droid, whose words it had been attempting to speak fell to a staticy hum before silence. Cody looked out the corner of his eye to the last man standing, a Devaronian with crimson skin and eyes widened in pure terror. He was unarmed save for a small handgun and had no comm as far as Cody could tell. The only thing the man seemed to possess was the stench of death, lingering around him like a moth to a flame.

Cody releases Kenobi’s blade from the metal hide of the tactical droid, letting the piece of machinery fall to the ground with a _clang!_ The sound causes the Devaronian man to flinch. Cody lets the saber hang from his side, careful not to have it schafe against his leg as he approaches the last Separatist standing on the platform. The officer nearly makes a run for it but Cody’s too fast, grabbing his collar tightly before he could manage a getaway. The man struggles against him, managing to knock off Cody’s helmet in the scuffle, but fails desperately. When he unholsters the pistol on his belt the commander swats it out of his fumbling hands, and with no hesitation, he reels back and thrusts the lightsaber straight through the man’s heart. The Devaronian gasps, clinging to the hilt of the blade that plunged into his chest.

“Y— you’re not a Jedi,” the man sputters from the breach in his chest. “You—”

Cody watches him struggle with apathetic eyes, torn by the images of his fallen brethren, bodies piled up high against the walls while _this man watched_ . _He watched as Grievous took innocent lives and left none in his wake_. Cody tightens his fist in the officer’s collar and he forces the man to meet his piercing gaze. “No, I’m not.” His voice is a harsh whisper, calm yet grim and filled with pure contempt as he tightens his clench on the man’s collar. The Devaronian clings to his last few breaths before his eyes roll up glazed into the back of his head with a final gasp, jaw falling open lifelessly as he goes limp in the commander’s hold. Once Cody had made sure the man was no longer moving, he allows his dead body to crumple to the ground. 

The commander retrieves his helmet and deactivates Kenobi’s lightsaber, clipping it back into its rightful place on his belt. When he returns back to the staircase at the end of the walkway he sees that the battle has reached its end. Droids and clones were scattered along the battlefield motionless in the aftermath, the MagnaGuards that the Jedi and Rex had been fighting now mangled cadavers on the ground. The room is silent save for Cody exhausted breaths, sweat dripping down his temple. He scans all the Republic forces present in the wake of the outpost battle. Every single one of them was staring at him.

Fives and Echo tore off their buckets to reveal their unhinged jaws large enough to swallow all the flies in the room and eyes as wide as saucers. Rex dropped both his blasters, still as a statue as he fixed an aghast look on the commander. Skywalker was basically frozen carbonite. Even Obi-Wan was knocked speechless by the performance despite witnessing it before.

And Waxer and Boil… were they _recording_? Cody was going to kill them.

The silence permeated throughout the room, deafening Cody as he slowly descended down the metallic staircase closer to his men. It was suddenly broken by the sound of clanking boots, and Cody turned his head to find Wooley jogging up to him, holding something ebony in his hands. When he had slowed to a stop next to the commander, he could see that in the rookie’s hands was his blaster, gleaming and still in relatively good condition. “Here you go, sir!” Wooley exclaims, handing the weapon to Cody.

His features soften instinctively. He takes the rifle with his free hand and gives the rookie a grateful smile. “Thanks, kid.” 

“Holy…” Skywalker began. He resembles a gaping fish out of water, trying to find the right words to say in reaction to his master’s clone commander killing several Separatist droids and an officer with the man’s own lightsaber.

Fives, ever so present in making things harder than they needed to be, leaned over to Waxer, who had completed his recording of the event. “Did you get that?”

Waxer — one of the only ones in the room remotely fine — grins. He taps on his gauntlet and the holovid erupts to life, showcasing the commander of the 212th fighting off the guard droids, Kenobi’s lightsaber in hand. Everyone crowds around the hologram on display, the generals included, hooting and hollering in awe whenever Cody downed a droid. The commander sighed as he watched them, already bracing himself for the sea of troopers that would crowd around him once they had finished with their antics. He tucks his helmet beneath his arm and holsters his blaster, viewing the video from afar. By his side, Wooley had his bucket tucked to his chest with both arms, beaming at Cody. “If it makes you feel any better, you looked super cool.”

“Quiet, rookie.” Wooley laughs when Cody ruffles his hair and gives him a playful shove. 

When the two companies were finished watching the holovid a second time (they watched it twice, those bastards), they began to clear out the base and return it to steady working order. Cody returned Kenobi’s lightsaber to him with a glare of displeasure, of which his general had apologized for, and attempted to alleviate his commander’s annoyance by commenting on his swift strikes. During clean-up, dozens of troopers berated him with compliments — General Skywalker had even pat him on the back with an impressed grin. Cody guesses it feels a little good, especially now that he has a reason to demote Waxer and Boil to sanitation duty for a week.

Crews volunteered to collect the bodies of fallen clones with Cody included, and they were able to load them up on one of the transports to be burned before they left for the fleet in a few hours. Cody watched each mangled body be placed gently on the gunship with saddened eyes. The cheerful atmosphere dwindles down for a few fleeting moments, desolate and empty as the numbers increase.

Within an hour they were ready to be back to base, of which they would reside until the fleet would arrive. The clones of Torrent Company continued to gush about the commander’s performance while those in the 212th bragged about him on their way to their respective LAATs. Captain Rex, still knocked speechless, jogs up to Cody’s side when they approach the transport where their generals resided. “ _Vod_?”

“Yeah, _Rex’ika_?” Cody answers.

“When they said you were a demon with Kenobi’s saber, I did not think they meant it literally.”

Cody spares himself a chuckle. He’s still pretty exhausted, from the horrid display of death when they had arrived to his skirmish with the droids and officers up on the platform, though he’s relatively better compared to the last instance he held a saber. He’s already dreading the gossip and talks that would erupt when they get back to the base before their next mission, but unlike before, he’s familiar with it. It would no doubt be of a much larger scale than it had been before due to the video evidence of it, but at least with the image of General Skywalker with a mouth as agape as a rancor’s, he has something to be appreciative of. 

And gripping the hilt of a lightsaber once again? Light yet steady and blazing with pulsating energy that cuts through steel like blades to grasslands? There was the same exhilaration he had felt when he clasped his hand around it, chilling metal against the gloves sheathing his fingertips. It was addicting wielding it again, deflecting shots and slicing _beskar’ade_ , the feeling of it so unique yet _right_ despite how taboo it felt.

A lightsaber is not his weapon, Cody reminds himself when the feelings in his chest from holding the sacred blade grow too strong. His weapons were his bare hands stuffed full of a blaster. Not a lightsaber.

Cody shrugs off his internal conflict and gives Rex a glinting look. “I’ll make sure to teach you a few lessons when we get back to Coruscant.”

Rex grimaces. “Yeah. No thanks.”

Cody smirks at his brother’s comment, knowing that he was avid of sticking to the dual blasters on his hips and nothing more. When the two of them board the gunship, he catches eye of Fives and Echo outside the entrance of the transport, staring at him. He sends them an amused smile, taking pleasure in how their eyes widened after being caught in the act. Even since the Battle of the Rishi Moon base when they were just shinies, and maturing considerably since then, they were still damn adorable as _adiike_. “You need somethin’, gentlemen?”

“No, sir!” the two of them yell out instinctively, quickly climbing into the gunship before the bay doors closed. They situate themselves right behind their captain, gazes fixating anywhere besides the clone commander of the 212th. 

The transport takes off for the base on the other side of the mountains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translations:
> 
> ne’johaa - shut up  
> vod'ika - younger sibling  
> vod(e) - sibling  
> ram’ser(e) - sniper, marksman  
> beskar'ad(e) - droid  
> adiik(e) - child (3-13)


	3. blaring lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The concern that laps at Cody melts away and he smiles in amusement. “Well, it serves as a challenge. If you want to be an ARC Trooper, you’re gonna have to have the experience.”
> 
> “That’s such bullshit.”
> 
> “Language.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took a while to edit, i've been writing chapters ahead for some reason and it's messing me up so yeah. i think i'm chill with how this chapter turned out. and the ending is wrecking me a ton so. 
> 
> i already want to revise the next chapter so i can rip my own heart out of my chest. i've got four fucking months babey! think i'm going to write some other fics while i work on this one too so... yeah.
> 
> anyways, mando'a translations are on the bottom! i will not longer be adding in vod(e), vod'ika, and ori'vod since everyone should know what they mean by now.

Cody bit back the smile threatening to surface from within him when he was met with the incredulous stares of the shinies when they had first arrived. He had taken it upon himself to greet the new arrivals to the satellite station of the Tiika Moon, currently under construction. His _vode_ had poked fun at him when he had announced his intentions of doing so, saying he’d probably give them a heart attack before they had even managed to get a tour of the base.

( Cody, of course, knew this. It’s why he volunteered in the first place. )

“Good morning, troops!” he greets them with his hands tucked behind his back, scanning the group of five after they had disembarked from the shuttle through the small port hole that acted as a gateway. They had frozen immediately upon the sudden sight of the commander, his gaze observing their shell-shocked facades. “I’m Commander Cody, of the 212th Battalion and in charge of the operations here.”

They remained still, a few shifting around under the intense gaze of their temporary commander. A few of them had leeched off to whisper excitedly with one another. Cody raises an eyebrow, and he watches them fall silent and statue-like once more. He approaches one of the closest shinies, a sister with her raven curls tied up into a topknot and a fresh arrow tattooed through her right eye. “You.” She perked up under his attention like a tooka caught in headlights. “What’s your name?”

“Uh, Willow, sir,” she answers awkwardly. Cody hums.

“Willow, eh? Nice ring to it.” He nods to her respectively, and sees the awkwardness in her features give away to a glow that always erupted whenever Cody complimented the new cadets. He turns to two other clones, who he had suspected as twins judging by how close they stood by one another. “You two?”

“I— I’m Pygmy!” the boy stutters. He had the standard military cut majority of the GAR had. He points to the other clone who stands close by his side, hair cropped off at the shoulders and a stud pierced above the eyebrow. “A— and this is Mallus.”

“Hi,” is all Mallus offers.

“I’m Mark!” the fourth one exclaims, not bothering for Cody to address him. He seems to be the youngest of the whole group judging by his excited bounces similar to one of a ping-pong ball and the crooked grin displayed on his face as he cranes his neck up to get a good look at the commander. Cody nods to him as well and takes note of his energetic behavior with a fondness, before turning his attention to the last clone in the group left unnamed.

This one had a buzzcut and deep honey brown irises that most clones had. They stood completely still, stuck in a daze as they admired the commander with widened eyes. It isn’t until Mark nudges them on the shoulder that they blink out of their stupor.

“O— oh,” his _vod’ika_ mumbles, cheeks flushing in embarrassment. “I’m Maple.”

Cody smiles at them, and he is sure that the shiny nearly passes out from it. “Nice to meet you, Maple. It’s nice to meet all of you. You just arrived here from the base down on Tiika?”

“Yes, sir!” Pygmy’s voice squeaked. Despite being seemingly the oldest one out of the other _vode_ , he sounds as if he was still going through puberty, voice cracking with every word. “We were sent here by General Windu. Said you needed help with the satellite?”

“Correct,” Cody says. “You came at just the right time. We’ve been down on workers recently, and we need all the help we can get. You troops have breakfast yet?”

The five of them shake their heads in response, making Cody frown in concern. That won’t do. They would need their full energy if they needed to get to work later in the day. He turns his head towards the doorway that exited out into one of the hallways of the base, and he catches sight of a familiar mess of curls heading down to the mess hall. “Wooley!” he calls. The shinies jolt at his booming voice.

The clone halts in his place and swivels around to face him. He had recently been given permission by the commander to paint his own set of armor, which resulted in the gorgeous hues of tangerine decorating his ivory armor, which had accumulated a lot more grime and soot since the Second Battle of Geonosis. His shoulder pauldrons, now a vibrant shade of orange, were painted with a decal of sheep, which Wooley held a large adoration for. Stripes elegantly descended down his chest plate to the shin guards of his hips. His helmet, tucked beneath his arm, also shares a coat of paint as does the rest of his armor. It painfully reminds Cody that he’s growing out of his shiny-ness ( he’s still his _vod’ika_ , no matter what ). 

Wooley stands at attention, back rigid. “Yes, Commander?”

“Take these shinies down to the mess for some grub,” Cody instructs him. “Give ‘em a tour when you’re done. After that, report to me at the reactor. I’ve got some things I need you to work on.”

“Of course, sir! Right away, sir!” Wooley gives him a playful grin. Along with the fresh coat of paint on his bucket, he’s become a lot more bold and free-spirited, and did not mind poking at his commander every once in a while. He had said in the past that no matter what he’d do, he knew that Cody would let it slide. Cody hates that he’s right. He refuses to comment on his totally-not-correct statement, but he doesn’t deny it either.

Wooley beckons over for the rookies to join him in the mess hall. Mallus, Pygmy, and Willow salute respectively at Cody before running to catch up with the older, who had already begun his trek to breakfast. Mark, in contrast, leisurely went on his way to follow them, saluting Cody as well still with a lopsided grin. Only one clone is left, Maple, who still stands in front of the commander stuck in a daze once more. Cody raises an eyebrow at them. “You need something, trooper?” he asks them.

They blink out of their trance and shake their head furiously. “No sir! Sorry, sir!”

“It’s alright, kid.” He catches movement in the porthole that sits behind the troop, where the shuttle that had brought them to the satellite station was still parked. He could see someone speaking with the pilot inside, though he could not get a good look at them to see nor recognize them. He points to the apparent sixth member, who looks nothing like the other rookies. “She riding with you?”

Maple turns their head to where Cody thumb points to, and their eyes light up with excitement. “Oh! That’s Iuya, General Windu’s Padawan. Said she was sent here by him to help with the satellite too.”

A Padawan, huh? Commander Cody had met a fair share of Padawans over the course of the war, the most notable ones being Ahsoka Tano and Barriss Offee, and he honestly holds a soft spot for many of them who he had made acquaintances with. Tano was energetic and spunky, and she had basically become a little sister to him with every mission they went on. Offee was kind-hearted and quiet, caring for wounded clones after every battle they shared with one another. He’s met General Fisto’s young Mikkian and Secura’s tiny Cathar, and it’s safe to say that he’s fond of those little suckers.

It’s no surprise. Cody’s always been fond of children — their innocence was a rare treasure now in this conflict, and he’s been protective of that innocence for as long as he can remember. It had started back when he had been a mere trainee on Kamino. He’d babysit the younger cadets when the Kaminoans did not want to deal with them, and he comforted them in any way he could, even sticking up for them whenever they were pursued by the long-necks running the clone facility. He’s always had this softness for _ade,_ and he could not deny the curiosity that itches at him upon the new arrival of General Windu’s Padawan.

“I’ll make sure to make her feel at home,” Cody tells Maple. He places a hand on the kid’s shiny white pauldron, not yet tainted in battle. “You go get breakfast. Can’t have you starve to death on your first day here.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” The shiny salutes him and takes off down the hallway to catch up with their friends, stumbling at the doorway due to the bounce in their step before they disappear from view. Cody watches them go, a smirk erupting on his face after holding it back for so long. He’s sure these new shinies will fit right in with the others stationed on the satellite, stock full of 212th and a few 91st, all of whom Cody knew personally as open-minded and open-armed and desperate for new faces.

He turns to where the shuttle had been parked to the side of the base and frowns when he finds that the porthole door is shut. When he peeks through the glass of the door as well, he finds that the shuttle is no longer there and has begun its flight back to Tiika. He wonders if the Padawan had been called back to Windu or had sneaked out without his knowing when—

“Hi!” Cody would not admit to anyone that he _nearly jolts twelve feet into the air_ , swiveling around to come face-to-face to the source of the noise in the form of a young Twi’lek female. She couldn’t have been much older than Ahsoka, scrawny and only reaching up to the height of Cody’s shoulder blade. She had light rose pink skin and striped markings falling across her face and lekku, along with a simple headband wrapped around her forehead. Her eyes were a shade of brilliant amber. A lightsaber was clipped to her belt, and a small satchel hung from her shoulder. 

Her mouth that had been pulled into a jubilant smile gave way into a gasp. She clasped her hands over her mouth. “Oh my stars.”

“I could say the same,” Commander Cody replies. He places a hand on his hip, tilting his head at her to inspect the new arrival. “You General Windu’s Padawan?”

“Y— yes!” she pipped, adjusting the satchel on her shoulder in order to stand fully upright in front of the commander. “My Master sent me here to help with the construction. He said that I would be able to be more active here than down on the base with him.” She bites her lips as she pauses, weighing her words as she cranes her neck up to look at the older. “Sorry to bother you but… you’re Commander Cody, right? The one from the holovids?”

That was no surprise. The recordings that Waxer and Boil had taken of him were circling all around after they had posted them on the holonet. The influxed the entire GAR before making its way to the Jedi and their Council, even managing to reach the civvie squares of Coruscant. It was only a matter of time until everyone in the entire galaxy knew of Commander Cody’s bold actions back at the Republic outpost. It was no doubt a higher escalation than the first instance he had wielded a lightsaber. He had been labeled many nicknames since then: the Golden Fury, the Blade of the GAR, really stupid ones that Longshot had come up with that he _really_ doesn’t like thinking about. All of the names were stupid now that he thinks about it.

He isn’t as overwhelmed as before. He’s annoyed, sure, he’d rather just be ogled at by shinies and not by Jedi Master and civvies. But even after nearly strangling Waxer and Boil to death with his bare fists, he took some amusement from everyone’s reactions. One notable person was Skywalker’s Padawan, who had pulled him aside during their freetime on Geonosis to gush about his reverse-grip technique that he may or may not have gotten inspiration from the little one by his side. He had given her a small nuggie on the montrals as well for her little critiques on his form. 

Another one was Plo Koon, who had visited him courtesy of Wolffe being an asshole and convincing his general to approach him, which had resulted in the two having a pleasant conversation over tea over his skill as an untrained lightsaber duelist. 

He had even caught his fellow commanders watching the videos of him during leave. Cody is honestly offended that they think they’re slick enough to pretend they’re doing anything else when he walks into the room. He knows what they’re doing. They’re not slick at _all_.

Other than that, he’s doing rather fine even if the holovid gossip had not dwindled even a _little_ after so many days. Rex’s expression whenever he enters the room makes up for it considerably.

The young girl squeals in excitement when Cody nods, aurelian eyes twinkling with childlike wonder when she looks up at Cody. The commander hides how his heart absolutely melts when the Twi’lek grins, revealing a gap between the two front teeth behind her upper lip.

“I knew it!” she exclaims. “This is— wow, you really are cooler to look at in person. The younglings back at the Temple have been talking about you non-stop for the past few weeks. I’ve watched the videos of you on Baltor a hundred times and— and— I’m sorry. It’s just really great to meet you!”

“Pleasure’s all mine, kid,” Cody chuckles. “You got a name, or…?”

He trails off to let the girl pick up at what he’s asking of, and she pipes up at his words. “I’m Iuya! Iuya Mabeti!”

“Nice to meet you, Mabeti,” Cody says. “You eat already? You’re just the person I need right now. There’s some work that needs to be done on the satellite connected to the reactor down over. Problem is I’m too big for the crawl space. You seem just the right size.” He refrains from commenting on her puny stature, much too skinny even compared to Tano, especially with this girl being younger. It worries him.

“Oh, can I help?” Iuya begs, bouncing on her feet and basically _pouting_ at Cody. “I already ate, I swear. I’m ready to get to work.”

Cody scans her face to tell if she’s bluffing, but he finds none of the sort. “Well, if you insist,” he responds. He nods his head for her to follow him out the door when he feels a small hand wrap around his forearm. He’s taken completely by surprise, and sends the young girl a confused glance. Iuya blushes furiously as she retreats behind him, keeping her hand behind her back.

“Sorry!” she apologizes hastily, shame burning in royal blue on her rose-tinted cheeks. Cody’s exterior softens. Her behavior had reminded him so much like the cadets back on Kamino whenever they would cling tight to his leg, faced with new people and environments that had them seek the familiar man out like moths to a flame. Cody gently took up her hand and guided it back around to his elbow silently. He leads her out to the hallway and takes them to the reactor. Iuya, bouncing back into her cheerful disposition from Cody’s gesture, had taken to happily clinging to his arm, smiling so wide she could have blinded the entire station. She hopped with the tips of her toes as she did so.

They had arrived at a large corridor with construction equipment and discarded datapads were scattered around, a staircase at the end leading to the reactor room below. A batch of older clones were hanging out during their break time, situated on metal crates stacked up against the wall. Sprint takes notice of the duo. “Ooh, Commander! Is it take-your-kid-to-work day already?” Cody rolls his eyes at the clones’ resulting laughter. 

“She a shy one?” silver-haired Percival when Iuya shrinks under their gaze, unknowing if they were poking fun at her or not. “Who is she?”

“Windu’s Padawan,” Cody responds. “She’s helping us out for the time being.” He nudges her forward lightly with his arm, coaxing her from her retreat behind his back. “Go on, they ain’t as ugly as they look.” He ignores Percival scoff of hurt.

“Hi,” she pipes softly as she comes back into the limelight. 

Nikita leans closer to get a good look at the child with a tender smile. “Ain’t you a cutie?” she hums. Iuya’s cheeks flush as an embarrassed yet prideful smile appears in her features, and she squeaks a small thank you. The others of the squad take an immediate liking to her, and are about to ask more about the kid when Cody stops them.

“You better be back on duty by the time I get back,” he scolds them as he begins to lead Iuya back on their route to the reactor room. He adds in a, “Or I’ll have your _shebs_ on sanitation again.” The others meet his words with complaints and whines, but otherwise they promise to be down helping with construction once Sprint finishes his toast. ( Sprint’s toast, in fact, was far from finished. He had only taken a single bite out of it. Cody resists the urge to sigh. )

He leads Iuya down the staircase to the main site of construction, the youngling’s grip on his arm less tense than before. 

When they reach the bottom of the staircase, he watches the girl’s eyes go wide as she absorbs the gigantic room at the center of the satellite station. It was cavernous and filled to the brim with hanging wires, open vents, and discarded panels. Connecting the ceiling and floor was a large cylindrical mass of metal, with several orifices open within its silver hide and in operation by a few of the clones on morning construction duty. The masses of metal narrowed down to create a helix shape, of which electrical energy was buzzing between in a brilliant aqua blue. This hunk of gleaming steel was the reactor of the entire satellite station, and was connected with the disc above to power it for a range of signals with the bases below.

“Here it is,” he introduces. “The reactor room.”

“This place is gigantic!” Iuya swoons, releasing her grip on Cody’s arm to twirl around, taking in the sight of the large room. She plays around for a while, giggling when a tiny mouse droid bumps into her feet, and even waves a kind hello to a troop perched several feet above them, who had taken notice of her when she had entered the room. Cody watches her gaze in awe before Iuya catches herself being distracted, flushing in embarrassment once more. “Sorry, Commander.”

“It’s alright,” Cody replies. “Though I’ll need your full attention if we want to fix up this big boy. I don’t want _any_ mess-ups, got it?” His tone is light-hearted, but Iuya nods with determination.

Cody smiles in approval at her quick resolve and leads her to the part of the reactor that he had been struggling with before — one of the rectangular vents in the cylinder, far too narrow for any of the troops and the perfect size for the young _Jetii_. Iuya kneels beside him at the hole, and he brings a nearby toolkit closer to their workspace. The commander begins to instruct her on the basic mechanics of the reactor-satellite fusion along with the tasks he needed her to complete. He would supervise her progress, and offer a hand if she ever had an issue. Iuya listens to him with keen ears and nods when she understands what he is asking of her, refusing to be distracted even with the mouse droid running around her legs for attention. 

“You got all that?” Cody asks her when he has finished explaining her job. She had caught on pretty quickly, apparently having experience with the astromechs during her stay at the Jedi Temple. She nods eagerly, and Cody passes her the toolkit and a flashlight, and watches as she ducks into the tight space within the reactor.

Almost immediately he hears something _clink!_ “Kriff.”

Cody glares at her from his seat outside the hole. 

“Language,” he scolds her.

“Sorry!” she chimes. She crawls halfway out the space after a small squabble with the machinery around her, sheepishly glancing at a disapproving Cody. “You think you can hold my lightsaber for me? I don’t want it to get stuck while I work.”

Cody’s caught off guard from the sudden request. He’s never been trusted with a lightsaber by anyone other than General Kenobi, who only trusted him with the blade since he was always the one fetching it for him whenever he lost grip of it. No other Jedi in the Order trusted their clones with their own sabers — it’s exactly why Cody’s position had been so unique and unheard up among the clone army. Even Bly never got the chance to hold onto Secura’s saber, and he’s pretty sure they’ve been dancing around their feelings around each other since the beginning of this war. So the look in Iuya’s eyes is one of trust and purity, and it has Cody realize that this girl may trust him with her life. His heart melts even more.

He manages a small nod before she places the hilt of the lightsaber in his hand, retreating back into the workspace to get back to business. Cody relaxes outside with his back to the large cylindrical metal while the youngling worked. A few minutes after she had begun working, Maple had arrived to bring Cody a warm cup of tea once they had heard that he had not had his daily ounces yet. Cody thanked them kindly, his features softening from the small gesture of kindness. He was comforted by the familiar sounds of buzzing and circuit wires throughout the space as he sipped his tea ( which he was impressed by, just the right amount of honey to sweeten it ), even humming a small tune under his breath away from the ears of others. He retrieved tools for Iuya whenever the toolkit was missing a piece she needed as well.

Halfway through her work, when Cody had just finished his morning homebrew tea, Iuya sweet voice pipes up again. “Can I ask you a few questions? You don’t have to answer if you don’t! I’m just curious and all that.”

Cody is glad that the girl could not see the fond smile playing at his lips. He could see why the other clones saw her as absolutely _copikla_. “Ask away, kid.”

“Have you ever held a lightsaber before?” she asks.

“Nah,” Cody responds. He had already anticipated that question from parsecs away. “I have dealt with other melee weapons though. It gave me a little ground to work with when I used the general’s lightsaber. Jango Fett taught me all his techniques.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Iuya leans out the space so only her tiny head was sticking out, revealing the welding goggles over her eyes that were far too big on her tiny face. Under the specs, her eyes were wide. “You were trained by Jango Fett? The bounty hunter? Like personally? I thought he was just the genetic template for the clones, and you guys were trained by the _Cuy’val Dar_.”

Cody fought down the sudden wave of emotions that floods over his conscience, trying for a small smile. “He was, but he also personally oversaw my batch’s training himself. Taught me all he knowed. Judo flips, pressure points, blaster handling. All that stuff.”

“Woah.” Iuya’s face was slack with awe. “You are so cool.”

Cody nearly cackles from the comment, but he hides it beneath a poorly executed cough when the Padawan ducks back into the darkened space. “Okay, next question!” Iuya announces. “Tell me how you were able to use General Kenobi’s lightsaber. For both times!” 

The commander then regards her with the tales from the desert planet where he had been surrounded by clankers, gun shot out of commission and no one to aid him; then of his experience on the grassy plains of Baltor, where he had taken down ten snipers, four droid guards, and a Separatist officer with only a lightsaber in hand. He made sure to not over exaggerate too much over his stories, though he might as well have gauged out Asajj Ventress’ eye judging by Iuya’s growing awe in him.

“Do you still use a lightsaber?” she asks him once he’s finished with his story. Cody shakes his head.

“No, I still stick with my blaster. I don’t think the Jedi or the Republic are keen on letting anyone other than your folks using a lightsaber.”

“Oh. Well, you are super good with one! Honestly! I would have mistaken you for an actual Knight if I had seen you out there. You use a few techniques that aren’t really used by any Jedi, but it makes sense since you’ve never _used_ it before. You should use a lightsaber more often though!”

“Thanks for the compliment, kiddo.”

“Hey, if you want, you can check out my saber! If you want to, that is.” 

Cody sends the void that has currently swallowed the Padawan whole a concerned glance. “Uh, I don’t really use a lightsaber when I’m _not_ under any danger. Threat of my life and all.” He inspects the gleaming metal hilt, gilded by sheets of gold wrapped around ebony steel. It certainly was beautiful, the intricate carvings of each part personal and unique to Iuya and Iuya only. He rotates it around with his fingertips, carelling caressing the cool metal separated from his skin by the black leather wrapped around his skin. He doesn’t know if he has the right to even hold it in his clutches. “I mean, if you don’t mind—”

“I don’t,” Iuya interjects. She ducks back out from within the space, watching the commande with an eager twinkle in her eyes. “Go on! I think you’ll like the color.”

The color?

Cody hesitantly wraps his hands around the hilt of the blade. Like Kenobi’s, it was light and feathery, barely of any weight in the palm of his hand. He pauses for a moment, glancing at the young Twi’lek who nods at him excitedly to continue, and with a hitched exhale he activates the lightsaber.

What he’s met with is a blazing edge of brilliant gold, a mixture of buttercup yellow and tender tangerine, gleaming for all to see. The energy blazes brighter than any star and causes everyone in the vicinity to focus their attention on the gleaming beauty, a magnificent blade that illuminated the reactor room. Cody slowly twirls the saber by the hilt, taking in the weapon’s angelic light that cascaded down his face in ripples of perfect aurelian. Iuya was grinning at him, her tooth gap on display, gaze fixated on the commander’s reaction.

“So?” she asks him. “Do you like it?”

Cody is lost as he transfixes on the blade. He’s almost breathless. “Of course,” he told her, and Iuya’s smile widened. “You constructed this by yourself?” He knew that Jedi had constructed their own lightsabers when they were just younglings, one of the many stories Obi-Wan had regarded him with when they had time to rest.

Iuya nods jubilantly. “I did! I used all the parts Professor Huyang gave to me for it.”

“I’ve never seen this color before.”

“I know, right? It’s not actually that rare — Jedi Sentinels have this color too, but they aren’t really seen in the open besides in the Temple. Still, most of my friends have green or blue, so it really scared me back then when I activated it. I thought I did something wrong at first.”

Cody hums, shutting off the saber and returning it to his lap where he cradled it before. “Well, it is beautiful, I can tell you that.” If the commander was already dizzy from the luminosity of Iuya’s saber, her beaming face was enough to blind him. It once more reminded him of his young _vode_ back at Kamino, who would gleam whenever he would so much as compliment them. Their little noses would scrunch and their eyes would light up like stars in hyperspace, grinning with all their pearly whites. Iuya’s face was so alike them, rosy-cheeked and button nosed.

“Thank you,” she responds with gratitude. She crawls out of the space, taking one last look at the vent she had been working on for almost an hour, before she takes off her welding goggles. “I think I’m done.”

“Let’s see.” Cody leans into the space, activating the lightsaber to provide a source of light in the darkness, hearing the youngling giggle at him. Everything seems to be in working order; the kid did a pretty good job. He deactivates the saber when he finishes check-up, handing the hilt of the blade to the Padawan with a graceful flourish. “You are good to go, sir.”

Iuya giggles once more, her laugh high-pitched and adorable. “Thank you, Commander. Anything else I can do?”

“I think I’ve got everything from here,” Cody replies. “How about you get some of the troops to take you on a tour around the base? Word of advice: don’t go with anyone named Frey. Last time he gave the rookies a tour, they nearly got ejected back to space.”

Iuya nods. “On it! Take tour, don’t talk to Frey. I’ve got it down.” She pops right back up to her feet, Commander Cody following suit. “Do you know where that nice lady trooper is working? The one who called me… uh…”

Cody chuckles. “Nikita? Should be down at the mess hall by now, helping clean-up. She’s probably the best for you to go with. If you can’t find her, look around for some guy with silver or dash lines down his mouth. Where she goes, Percival and Sprint aren’t far behind.”

“Got it. Have a good day, sir! And thank you!”

She skips out the room, the bounce in her steps echoing up the flight of stairs til they disappear entirely. Cody feels a lightness in his chest, a complete contrast of the weariness he had experienced yesterday afternoon when he had nearly collapsed from the obscene amount of paperwork he was finishing up for that day. Iuya had certainly brightened up his morning, followed up by the arrival of the _copikla_ rookies and the nice cup of tea that Maple had brewed for him themself. He knows that in the coming week that her bubbly and innocent personality would bring a new vibe to the steel gray walls of the base of the satellite. She’ll certainly make afternoons more enjoyable. Cody was known to be a morning person in contrast to much of his _vode_.

He nudges the toolkit away from the space and takes up the panel left discarded against the side of the reactor, affixing it against the hole to close up the finished workspace. He hears someone call down to him from above. Trini, the same clone that Iuya had waved hello to, curly locks pulled up into a small ponytail. “ _Gar adiik?_ ” Trini asks him in fluent Mando’a, smirking at his commander teasingly. 

Cody glares at him. “ _Nuh’la_ ,” he snarls in exasperation. “Just keep working, _vod’ika_.” He’s met with a guffaw, then the buzz of voltage.

Cody rolls his eyes at the younger’s antics, and returns to work.

  
  


Within a week, the satellite had reached completion. With the arrival of the new troops along with their Jedi companion, they managed to ease the construction process and finished quicker than expected. Cody as a result was left with much more downtime, so he often spent it either relaxing in the afternoon within his sleeping quarters or talking with the other clones. All those in the base had grown rather fond of the shinies and Iuya, who served to brighten up the mood no matter how sullen their day could start out.

Cody was one of those people. He watched over the shinies like a hawk in case they tried to stir up trouble and smiled at their antics during mealtimes in the mess hall. The rookies were a close knit group due to being the babies of the crew, so they stuck by with one another and hung out with Iuya as well. Cody listened to their stories regarding their training on Kamino and had gotten a pretty good grip on who they were as the days passed. He learned the origins of their names, some of their first missions before being transferred to the Tiika Moon Satellite. Throughout the following week they had become familiar with everyone aboard, and opened up to their older _vode_.

Cody especially made time for Iuya. He often needed her help when the technical jobs required someone scrawnier than he was to climb through tight spaces, though he asked for her assistance in other jobs as well. As they worked together, Iuya continued to regard him with stories of her life, from her induction into the Order back before Ryloth was held under a Separatist blockade to her wild antics as a youngling in the temple. Cody always listened with intent. The Padawan was also very avid of learning about the commander himself, who she followed around like a lost tooka. Her eyes would always light up whenever Cody told her of his past missions with Kenobi, full of beaming curiosity and twinkling irises. She even admitted that she still watches his holovids to give her some semblance of comfort now that she was out in the galaxy.

She stuck around Wooley and Nikita (who Cody was pretty sure Iuya had a small crush on) but she mostly clung to the commander. Cody felt himself grow fonder of her each day, the stress that edges away at him nonexistent with her around. Many of the troops took his softness towards her with light humor, joking that by the end of the week he’ll have adoption papers ready and signed. He never denied it. He loved talking with Iuya, her innocence and bubbly demeanor easing all those present in the room. He dreads when the time would come when the satellite was in full operation, and their project ends.

Cody stood at the main deck of the satellite station alone, looking out towards the galaxy beyond. The universe was an abyss of pitch black dotted with stars, organized into elegant rivers that twinkled like crystals. He tucks his hands behind his back as he observes the star systems beyond. To the left of the spanning window of the deck was the Tiika Moon, oceans that raged across its surface shifting a wondrous cerulean. He could not see the many Republic bases scattered about on the mass, hidden within jutting cliffs of gray and depths of sea. He can hear his own breathing, calm and lax, relishing in these quiet moments where the war could never taint. Where he would be centered and grounded in the present moment, just him and his thoughts.

He heard footsteps approach from behind him. He drifts from his observation to look behind him, and finds a disgruntled Wooley approach, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he joins his older brother at the edge of the deck. “Hey, Commander,” he greets tiredly. Unlike majority of the time when he would be active and energetic, Wooley was reeking of drowsiness, blinking the tire from his facade. Cody bites back a chuckle at the younger’s weariness.

“You look lively,” he comments, and Wooley groans in response.

“I thought if I took a nap it would make me feel better,” he says, yawning afterwards. “But now I feel worse.”

Cody raises an eyebrow at him. “Did something happen?”

“We had to run the diagnostics for the satellite the _whole morning_ . Do you know how _boring_ it is staring at a computer screen for eight hours?”

The concern that laps at Cody melts away and he smiles in amusement. “Well, it serves as a challenge. If you want to be an ARC Trooper, you’re gonna have to have the experience.”

“That’s such bullshit.”

“Language.”

“I mean, isn’t it just recon and infiltration?” Wooley asks him with a whine, not bothering to note the comment Cody made. 

“You have to know computers to do both of those.”

“There’s gonna be other ARCs with me. I can do all the blasting while they can do all the boring stuff.”

Cody rolls his eyes at Wooley’s excuse, wrapping a brotherly arm around his _vod’ika_ and bringing him close in a close manner. “Why do I even try with you?”

Wooley grins at him. “Because you love me?”

“Try again.”

Wooley pouts, crossing his arms as he fixes a playful glare at his commander, eyebrows scrunched together cutely. Even with how much more mature he’s become since Ryloth, he still had the aura of the shiny that had arrived to the 212th with eager eyes. “Why are you so mean to me?”

Cody shrugs. “‘s fun.”

“To you.” Wooley follows Cody’s gaze out the window. The gleam of the stars twinkle in their reflection in the younger’s eyes, and his face is overcome with quiet awe. 

The room is enveloped in a quiet save for the faint whirring of the terminals and the chatter of the clones outside muffled by the steel walls, the only sound Cody’s ears register being Wooley’s tame breathing, comforted by the presence of his _ori’vod._ They watch the moon below them rotate slow and steady, the galaxy going on its way while they watch with keen eyes. 

Often Wooley would find Commander Cody here on the deck taking in the scenery, and though at first he teased his moments of solitude, eventually he had joined the commander in his habits. They are content with the peace, as it would be the last of it before their deployment back to Coruscant the next day now that the construction of the satellite was complete. They were doing some of the final tests now before it would be in full operation next morning.

“We’re going to have another mission after this, right?” Wooley asks him to break the veil of silence. “When we get back to the base?”

Cody nods. “Kenobi told me that once he and some of the other generals were finished up with business, we would have to settle down some disputes happening over in the Corellian Sector. Then after that, we’ll be searching for Grievous. And after that—”

“I get it,” Wooley sighs with so much exhaustion it makes Cody chuckle at the sight. “No more breaks. Not even a shore leave after today.”

“I mean, technically, this is our shore leave.”

“No, a shore leave is when we’re doing something fun or nothing at all,” Wooley huffs. “Not work on satellites every day. It tires me out.”

“Kid, looking at a computer tires you out.” The commander laughs again as Wooley’s pout increases in size. “And at least you’re hanging out with your friends and taking naps. Who knows, you might have to wait months to do that again.”

“I know,” his brother sighs. “I dunno, I just wish we had more time to relax before deployment again. Where we don’t have to do anything, and I can just hang out with the rest of my _vode_ without having to worry about coding and all that.”

Cody nods in understanding. He’s been searching for a break since Ryloth, where the threats that showed their ugly faces in the form of enslavement and captivity on the planet cursed him since then. He’s been deployed non-stop since then, and it was only now that he managed to gain some semblance of relaxation. This was the most of a break he’s had in a while, and it’s _still_ in favor of the Republic. Cody wants to do something in favor of _himself_ , to go out with his brothers and sisters and siblings and relax somewhere nice without the threat of dying.

But the war escalates with every passing day, and Cody knows that his downtime will become shorter and shorter until each day is one spent on the battlefield. There will be no time to hang out with his _vode_ or laugh at Wolffe’s disgruntled comments or complain of his general to Rex in the upcoming months. He wasn’t one to dread too much on the future, but these battles are just waiting to grow bloodier. He doesn’t want to be there when it happens, but he’ll eventually have to. Peace will be a forgotten word to him. 

“Do you know, _vod_?” Wooley asks him suddenly as he ponders on his words. Cody raises an eyebrow at him in confusion.

“Do I know what?” he asks.

“Do you know? When the war’s gonna end?”

That’s a new one. “Why are you asking?”

Wooley shrugs. “It’s just… curiosity, I guess? I’m not saying I don’t want to fight. I’m ready to fight for the Republic, no matter the cost. But I also don’t want to just do that for the rest of my life.”

Cody stares at him, unknowing of how to answer his question. Mostly because he doesn’t have an answer to it. Wooley’s words are like a knife that stabs him in the heart, deep and chilling. Cody doesn’t have an answer, a fact that he hates with a burning passion. Being left in the dark was the worst feeling he could experience, a helplessness as he drifts among these fleeting stars. When was this war going to end? He can’t say soon, or even give a rough estimate, because any answer he could give to Wooley would be a lie, and no matter what he would experience, Cody could _never_ lie. 

He doesn’t know which side will reign victorious in this galactic conflict. He doesn’t know what will it take to do so, or who will fall in pursuit of the peace everyone craves. He doesn’t have a goddamn clue of what will happen to the clones when this war ends. The latter-most always creeps at him, the many outcomes of his _vode_ playing across his mind. What will happen once they have expended their use? When these soldiers bred to fight for a Republic no longer have a reason to fight? He could not imagine a happy ending for them. And that terrifies him.

“I don’t know, kid,” he answers Wooley after seconds of silence. “I don’t know.”

Disappointed, Wooley’s face falls and he drifts his gaze back out the window. “Oh.” Cody feels guilt for his blunt answer, but inside he knows that if he said anything else it would eat him up even more. So, making a decision, he brings the younger closer in his one-armed embrace.

“Hey, next time we go on break, how about you and me hang out together?” he suggests. “We can do anything you want.”

The light in Wooley’s eyes return in full force, honey brown irises lifting up to look at Cody with gleaming hope. “Seriously? Just us?”

Cody nods. “Of course. When we go on shore leave or even just have down time, your choice of when. That is if you’re up for it?” He already knows what Wooley’s answer is when a grin stretches across his face.

“Hell yes!”

“Language.”

“Sorry.” He doesn’t look all that sorry. He’s bouncing up and down with excitement, practically vibrating with eagerness for the next time they go on leave. “Stars, there’s so much I want to do. You know that water park that opened up a couple of weeks ago on Coruscant? The one where Jasper and Gregory got banned from because they caused a tsunami in the wave pool?”

Cody recoils. “They did _what_?”

Wooley grins with a mischievousness that rivaled all else, and he began to recall the story of how two of the vet troops had gotten themselves kicked out of the water park ( managing to give Cody a gargantuan migraine as a result ). The rookie began to come up with more suggestions for how they should spend their next moment of free time. Cody listens to each with keen ears, nodding and rejecting many of his ideas ( “We are _not_ going to karaoke night, _Wool’ika_ .” ). His mind was at ease next to his baby brother, letting his words wash over him like a cleansing ocean. He would have stayed with him for the rest of the night before they went to bed, comforted by the younger’s avid voice when _the base jolts sideways_.

It was as if a large missile had detonated against them. Cody and Wooley stumble over from the sudden rock of the satellite, the older keeping a latch on the younger to prevent him from crumpling to the ground. “What the heck was that?” Wooley yelled out, eyes wide in a panic from the sudden impact. 

In an instant, the room was doused in crimson. The alarms, blaring on the ceiling and draping the main deck in a flashing red, shrieking in Cody’s ears in hopes of deafening him. He makes sure Wooley is alright and tugs him up to stand upright against the window before sprinting over to one of the computer terminals. Danger in the form of red Aurebesh blink in and out across the screen. “What the hell…” he mutters to himself. As he read over the description of the sudden alarm, he felt his blood run cold. An explosion had set off on the left side of the satellite station. That section of the station was the one facing towards the Tiika Moon. Where the escape pods were.

As the epiphany rose in his chest, another explosion rocks the station. He curses as he grips the terminal, knuckles turning white beneath his blacks, the port swishing side to side from the impact of the missiles. Who the hell was taking their sweet time in cutting off the escape pods of the satellite? _How_ _did they even know about the satellite_? The Tiika Moon was stationed far away from the other Separatist complexes around their area, and it was much too small to be noticed. How long have they known of their operations here?

His running thoughts are cut short when Wooley screams at him. “Commander! There’s a ship docking here!”

Of fucking course. “Wooley, see if you can send a transmission to the outposts below!” he ordered. They switched places on the main deck, with Wooley tapping on the terminal and Cody staring out the window to see the scene unfolding. The commander’s hands freeze against the chilling glass he presses against. A starfighter, around the size of three ports the escape pods were once held in, had steered towards the west side of the satellite base. Across its hull and wings were scratches, its finish a deep indigo, and the pilot within it was hidden by the tinted windows surrounding the seat. Cody had never seen this ship before. It didn’t belong to the Republic at all, but it did not resemble a ship either. As he tries to make sense of it, Wooley yells at him.

“Sir, something’s not working!” he yelled. “I think there’s something wrong with the satellite!”

 _Osik_. Cody runs over to him. “What do you mean?”

Wooley’s face was contorted into a panic, fear gripping him as he tries to send the signal, to no avail. “I— I don’t know. This doesn’t make sense, we ran the whole system this morning—” He fumbles for words as he tries to explain, but Cody places a gentle hand on his pauldron to stop him from hyperventilating. He can’t have anyone panic. Not now.

 _They trapped them here_ , the commander realizes with a hitched breath. They had taken out all the escape pods. Their communications weren’t working. They knew what they were doing. They were keeping them here, with no hope of escape or safety. They’re trapped.

“It’s okay, trooper,” Cody told him, keeping his voice steady as he could muster. Even under the horrid escalation of danger, he would not falter. “Just breathe. Just breathe.”

Just then, the doors to the main deck slam open, and Cody recognizes the young girl that enters the room. Iuya, her headband wrapped around the base of her striped lekku, her body trembling in panic. “Cody! Wooley!” Her hand is tightened around her golden lightsaber. Cody approaches her in a haste, Wooley right behind him.

“Iuya! Is everyone alright?” He needs to make sure his men are safe. He needs to make sure they’ll be okay, even if the oxygen in the room grows weaker with every moment spent breathing.

“I— I think so,” Iuya stammers. She’s breathing heavily, as if she had run all the way across the ship to get them. “But everyone’s at the west end of the station. We need to hurry!”

Cody nods. He places a hand on her shoulder. “Lead the way.”

They sprint down the series of corridors leading down to where the escape pods had previously been holed up. When they arrive at the scene, dozens upon dozens of clones have gathered, disgruntled and horrified as they aimed their blasters and rifles at the center port door. To the side of the port hole in the center of the others was a red-lit panel, indicating that someone was docked in the space. Cody and Iuya made their way to the front of the group. “All of you! Back away!” he shouts, and his troops oblige. He doesn’t know who this being is, but like hell was he going to let him hurt his crew.

He unholsters the blaster rifle on his belt and aims it at the doorway, placing himself in front of Iuya, who has unsheathed her golden saber. She might be a Jedi, but Cody was older and more experienced. He’s not about to let her be hurt either.

For a while, the only sound was the alarm in the room dousing the world in crimson, no one daring to move. Cody’s heart was racing in trepidation as he fixes the angle of his blaster, feeling small in the face of the impending force that would occur once the port hole opened. He sees Iuya, trembling by his side. She had never looked so fragile, so out-of-place here within the oceans of war. He sends her a glance and she meets it, nodding to her as a sort of comfort. She nods back, the tenseness of her features dissipating just enough for her to steady her hold on her weapon. Cody looks back at the door, and despite the screeching alarms, it’s quiet. Deafening.

Then he hears it. He realizes it too late, when he realizes that it was taking far too long for the attacker to open the door. Above him, in the vents located above and below each of the rooms on the base, he could hear it. Scraping metal. Scurrying across, the crawl of mechanical limbs hidden by the shouting alarms. He can recognize that sound anywhere. It’s what his troops tell him, the surviving ones, bedridden for days after each ordeal with the _demagolka_ , eyes blown wide in indescribable terror. It’s what they hear — the monster in the dark, the demon hidden beneath plates of metal that tortures slowly until striking. The last moments before the beast snaps out and kills mercilessly. Cody doesn’t have time to shout out a warning before the vent in the center of the ceiling caves, and Vexer’s chest is impaled by a saber of putrid green.

Everyone reels back, and Cody vaguely registers screaming Vexer’s name as he watches the life drain from his brother’s eyes. He can’t move. His finger is still on the trigger, unmoving despite how much he wanted to blast that piece of _shit_ to pieces. But when the figure returns back to full height, his throat constricts tight enough to choke him. 

He’s a monster in a cloak of riveting darkness, pooling around his form like the blood of those he has slaughtered. In two of his spindly arms are a lightsaber, stolen lightsabers, dousing the blaring crimson room in a horrendous light. The demon unsheathes the blade plunged into Vexer’s lifeless body, twirling his weapons around his taloned fingers. His breaths are mechanical, belonging to a clanker’s, organic yet so soulless as his slitted golden eyes brimmed with rotten flesh inspect them like caged animals. He towers over them, his _dawoor_ nearly making Cody vomit from the degrading flesh crossed with machinery. A monster, something so horrific it was _insulting_ , stands before them with soulless yellow eyes.

Grievous eyes Iuya with interest. She’s shaking under his gaze, trained on the amber-colored lightsaber in her hand. 

“Hello there,” he croaks. Voice hoarse and scratchy, a discordant note to the ears. For a split moment, all is still in the room. Still except for the smoke that pours from the singed opening in Vexer’s corpse, billowing through the air.

Then the viper strikes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2003 grievous babey!!
> 
> translations:  
> ade: children  
> shebs: backside, rear, buttocks  
> jetii: jedi  
> copikla: charming, cute (for babies or animals)  
> cuy'val dar: a group of a hundred individuals summoned by jango fett to train the clones on kamino. the meaning of their name in mando'a is "those who no longer exist."  
> "gar adiik?": "your kid?"  
> "nuh'la": "funny"  
> osik: dung (shit)  
> demagolka: someone who commits atrocties, a real-life monster, a war criminal  
> dawoor: bad smell


	4. bloody walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Good.” Cody is about to lift up the panel above him to sneak out towards the reactor room at the center of the station when someone catches his arm. He angles his head down to find Iuya, who had not spoken the entire meeting, gripping tightly to prevent him from leaving. Her eyes are puffy and bloodshot, and tear tracks are fresh as they cascade down her rose-tinted cheeks.
> 
> “Wait,” she croaks. It is as if her vocal chords have been ripped violently from her throat, wrenching Cody’s heart. “Let me come with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can tell i know jack shit about machines. had fun writing the fight scenes and interactions! i hate the ending though. but it is what is is :)
> 
> mando'a translations are at the bottom! kill me if you want, lmao.

The bodies fall one by one.

They hit the floor before anyone could even think to blink. Heads are slit off, eyes are gouged out, screams pierce the steel gray walls that have become a cage for feral beasts to reside within. It happens so quickly. It’s too much to keep up, a body plunking to the floor with every slice of a lightsaber. Grievous is the nightmare — he crunches skulls beneath his mechanical feet, mauls torsos in some sort of gruesome delight, strikes silent and deadly with the only indicator he is truly there and not some phantom being his breathing. Hoarse and choking, killing any sort of words formed in the throat. He _should not even be breathing_ . _He’s too horrid to breathe_.

They fall so easily under his blade. Mallus and Pygmy are crushed to death within the grasps of two of his limbs. Percival’s chest is ripped open by a saber of merciless blue. Mark’s neck is snapped, Maple’s head flies in the air. They fall before they even have time to register that they are finished with, screeching as their necks are broken and their bodies crumple against the walls of the west end. Cody can’t speak, he can’t even move other than aim his blaster at the _demagolka_ , firing and missing each shot because his hands can’t stop shaking _,_ he can barely function, _he can’t even land a single hit on him_.

He remembers sitting at the bedside of one of the clones that had survived one of the attacks Grievous had unleashed on an outpost on his planet. Tears coursing down their cheeks, eyes pulled wide in terror and a permanent aghast expression, as if the Separatist killer was right behind Cody’s shoulder. Their words are a whisper, as if their voice was ripped brutally from their throat, more tears cascading down their sullen cheeks. “ _He killed them_ ,” they whimpered, sobs wracking their throat. “ _He killed them all. Every last one. He killed them_ .” Cody had felt sympathy back then, but he was not afraid. Not until he saw it with his own eyes. Where each of his men, his _brothers_ , fell without even a sound. It’s a massacre, and he was sitting in the center of it.

Iuya had been overcome with grief from how much happened within the fraction of a second, and attempted to attack Grievous, to which the Separatist killer only took intrigue in. The Padawan drew back her lightsaber, golden and gleaming, but Grievous had anticipated the move, blocking her blade with two of his own. Iuya’s nimbleness was the only thing that saved her from the demon, dodging each of his strikes that were quick as a viper. Cody and the rest of the men snapped from their horror-stricken daze, increasing their fire on the Kaleesh. The man did not falter, merely deflecting each, managing to parry the fire back at the troops’ waiting chests. Wooley screamed out when Trini was flung against the wall after he had attempted to catch Grievous while he was in his duel with Iuya, the _demagolka_ only finding him as an inconvenience and chucking his body out of his way. Trini’s body _cracked_ as it hit the wall, and he lay there. Still.

“Fall back! Fall back!” Cody screams out to the survivors. Grievous may be outnumbered, but he was too dangerous. Too agile and deadly. He had halved their numbers, the dozens of troops present in the room falling to around twenty. Twenty, and he had only just begun. He pulled back Wooley as he continued to scream orders, attempting to take back order from the chaos that was occuring at the scene. “Iuya! Fall back!”

Iuya takes a glance at him and manages to duck one of Grievous’ swings, but unfortunately, his blade scrapes off a portion of the skin on her bare shoulder in the process. She screamed out in agony, clutching to her bicep with eyes tearing up. Grievous had taken her vulnerability to his advantage, and delivered a swift kick that launched her to the doorway the troops were backing out of. Cody grabs her before she could hit the floor, stumbling from the momentum of the kick, and he dragged her with him as they sprinted down the hallway, the monster left back at the west bay to find his way towards them. He tugs her through the doorway and slams his forearm on the panel by the door, activating the lockdown door.

It would only trap him for so long. And there were still the vents above, winding in line with the other hallways. It would only be a matter of time until he escapes.

“Scatter!” he screams out, pushing a group of his troops including Wooley and Nikita towards the left corridor while he orders his other set of men to take the right. If they stayed in one big group and Grievous found them, it would mean the end for all of them. Their best bet was to divide their forces around the base and have Grievous attempt to locate each one. He forces his own group to pick up their pace, already dreading the song of crittering metal above them. “Move it, now!”

“No!” Iuya screeches out, struggling to escape from Cody’s death grip on her arm as she attempts to run back to the west end — suicide is far as Cody’s concerned. The young Padawan had one hand on her smoking wound, eyes frantic as she cranes her neck back towards Grievous’ cage. “We— we can’t! I need to—!”

“Kid, listen to me!” Cody shouts at her. “Going back there is a death wish! None of us have the means ready to face him! Our best option is to hide!”

He realizes with horror that the only reason why they were alive at that moment was because Grievous had been at his most benevolent and merciful — he could have easily killed Iuya in the moment she had been most vulnerably, left open to strike after she had suffered that agonizing wound. He was going easy on them. He knew that without Kenobi or Skywalker, their only defenses were their own belongings and Windu’s Padawan, who had only participated in one or two battles before this time. He would take his sweet time with them as he knows they will be dead by the end of the night, slowly torturing them as he prepares to make the kill. He _wants_ them to run, because he knows there’s nowhere they could hide.

“But—!” Iuya’s crying, fresh tears coursing down her cheeks as she weakly attempts to wretch her arm from Cody’s hold. She’s never looked so fragile or furious, eyes burning with a flickering rage that coexists with grief, sobs wrenching from her throat. “I have to protect you—!”

“Not now kid!” Cody’s voice is final, not leaving room for debate. He’s not letting Iuya go out there again. He was already feeling a pang in his heart. Where the _vode_ he cherished with his entire soul had been ripped right from between the bones of his ribcage. “Right now, we need to go!”

Iuya doesn’t seem convinced, but she ceases her struggle, defeat evident in how she retains her tightness on Cody’s hand but does not bother letting go.

Cody scanned around as they went down hallway after hallway, corridor after corridor. They would need a hiding space, somewhere close to where they would be able to gain supplies and survive for at least an hour or more. He ruled out any of the important rooms such as the mess hall or medbay, where Grievous would be tempted to investigate first. No, they needed someplace that would hide them where the monster would never guess to look. Hidden in plain sight.

“Commander!” Wooley had ceased running in front of the group, standing in front of a convenient open panel in the floor. The space within it was rather cramped, but it would no doubt fill everyone in their group. Cody had seen these types of chutes around — they served as emergency hideaways in the case of a breach at the station. Not far away was the medbay and to the other way the barracks, perfect for them to sustain themselves before Grievous caught up to them.

“Good thinking, Wooley!” Cody points down to the small space in the floor. “All of you! Down there! Move it!”

The clones went down the chute one-by-one. As they descended into the small dark space, Cody froze. He heard a scuffle several corridors away, muffled by the durasteel walls surrounding them. The sound of metal popping, almost as if something had detonated where the west end portholes were, accompanied by the scuttling of mechanical limbs and screams of troops that echoed down the halls. He hears blaster fire, then silence. He has no time to check further, only feeling his heart shrivel up in his own chest as he climbs down the chute once he has gently shoved Iuya in. He grabs the panel to the side of the hole and slides it over the space. The light is blotted out, and they are left in darkness.

He hears someone fumble with their belt and is nearly blinded by the white ray of a flashlight, courtesy of Sprint. After running so long their breaths were rapid and labored, heartbeats running still and temples throbbing. Cody releases his hold on Iuya’s arm though the latter curls up closer to him.

“Everyone alright?” Cody asks them. There were eight of them in total including the commander, all huddled up beneath the cramped panel that acted as their ceiling. “Wooley?”

“Good,” Wooley answers.

“Nikita?”

“I’m alright.”

“Willow? Sprint?”

“We’re fine.”

There were two other clones present, 89 and Watcher, who seemed in relatively good shape. Counting him and Iuya as well, all of them were fine despite how Watcher’s arm had been crushed when he was thrown against the wall and Sprint was nursing a singed ankle. Cody had no idea how the other clones around the base were doing. He couldn’t stomach the sound of those screams down the corridor with the aid of slashing sabers, the troops he’s seen grow within their battalion killed at the hand of that… _thing_. 

Nikita attempts to nurse 89 and Sprint, and offers Cody an emergency bandage to wrap around Iuya’s damaged arm. “Here. She looks like she needs one.”

Cody nods in gratitude, nudging Iuya gently so she can display her wound. When she unclasps the burning wound, the commander does his best not to physically react, only allowing his eyes to go wide at how the cut went down through layers of skin, reaching to the tendons of her biceps. He wraps the bandage around her arm carefully until it wrapped around her entire arm, and pins it closed to keep it together. “Feel better?”

Iuya only nods. She doesn’t look like she wants to talk, curling in on herself. Cody is about to say something, not just to her but to the other troopers, when he hears it. Mechanical footsteps, clanking against the steel floors of the base above them. Heading straight towards them.

He frantically urges Sprint to shut off his flashlight, the latter of whom immediately obeys. They’re plunged back into darkness, breaths held tight against their chests as they listen to the steps come closer. There is the sound of shifting armor as they crawl closer to one another. Cody feels Wooley press up next to him, with Iuya falling suit. Cody only trains his eyes above through the dark floor above them, each of the _demagolka_ ’s steps grinding against the sheets of metal as he walks. 

Then, as if for some twisted prank the galaxy plays on them, Grievous stops right on top of their hiding space.

The commander’s breath hitches. _Of fucking course_.

He hears fumbling above them, like Grievous was retrieving something from his belongings. It sounds as if he’s holding something metal from how it sounds against the man’s talons. He prayed to whatever god out there that it would not be a tracking device, and that his _vode_ would be spared from the demon weighing over them like some sick omen. Then there is a sound similar to one of a portable holocommunicator, a hologram swishing to life.

“ _General Grievous_ ,” a man on the other end of the call answers, voice staticy from the thin connection between the two points. Cody notes that by the croon of his tone he seems to be relatively old. The man’s voice seems at first smooth and hospitable, but there is something laced beneath the way he speaks — something sinister and cruel.

“Count Dooku,” General Grievous responds. His voice still sends shudders down Cody’s spine, raising the hairs on his neck from how it sounds utterly _monstrous_. “I have successfully invaded the satellite station on the Tiika Moon.”

“ _Good, good_ ,” Count Dooku croons. “ _What of their soldiers and Jedi?_ ”

“Their only _Jedi_ ” — on the word Jedi, his abyssal voice is laced with jeering sarcasm — “is a youngling who barely knows how to hold a blade. The clones with her have scattered around the station to hide. I have destroyed all means of escape for them.”

“ _You are certain they will not call on the Republic for aid?_ ”

“I am no fool, Count. I have checked their satellite, and it appears to be malfunctioning. They have no way of contacting their petty Republic.”

“ _Do not get ahead of yourself, my friend. Though their numbers may dwindle, they are not to be underestimated. When I arrive, I want that satellite to be fully in our possession._ ”

“What are you suggesting, Count?”

Cody thinks Count Dooku is smiling wickedly in his next few words. “ _Seek out the remaining clones. When you find them, kill them. I’m counting on your performance._ ”

“Yes, Count Dooku.”

The holocom switches off. Grievous appears to tuck it back within his armor before beginning his pace again, scouting for the rest of the clones hiding away on the base. His footsteps echo across the hallway until he turns away, where his muffled steps slowly fade out until they are no longer audible. Even after he leaves, the cramped space they are hidden beneath is silence.

“Sprint, flashlight,” Cody orders.The light switches back on, and Cody is treated to the desolate sight of his _vode_ , shocked still with aghast faces. 

“That… that son of a bitch,” Sprint grits out, his fist clenching around the flashlight he was holding, forcing its white beams to tremble as they bounce off the walls of the room. There’s a rage dancing in his eyes that had flared with pure contempt since Percival was killed, only fueled by the sudden scenario above them.

“What do we do now?” Wooley asks. “We can’t stay here for long, Grievous will find us eventually.”

“We’re gonna die here,” Willow sobs, stifling a hand over her mouth as she whimpered helplessly. She had lost all her squadron — Mark, Maple, Mallus, Pygmy. All of them, murdered. Nikita lets the young girl tuck herself into her embrace, petting her raven hair to soothe her cries. “Stars, we’re going to die—”

“Shh,” Nikita shushes, combing her hands through the shiny’s locks. She too was aggrieved, especially after losing Percival. The trio she had formed with the silver-haired clone and Sprint was cut down to only two. “Don’t say that. We’ll be alright.” She looks to Commander Cody desperately, hoping he’d prove her point. “We have a plan, right Commander?”

For several moments Cody is frozen in place, a thousand eyes piercing him in the small cramped space. For several moments Cody does not answer. He doesn’t… he _doesn’t_ know what to do. Doesn’t even know what to say to them. Usually he would know exactly what to say in a situation like this, but in the present his mind comes up blank. His head pounds with the screams, his eyes hallucinate the visions of his _vode_ thumping lifelessly against the ground, everyone he’s grown closer to over the week now dead at the hands of something that was neither man nor beast.

He’s so terrified. Absolutely, bloody terrified. The renowned Jedi killer dashing through ranks with blades stolen from those he had slain, cackling with gruesome glee as he murdered innocents with no concept of mercy. He is no Jedi nor Sith — he is something far, _far_ worse. He takes, and he takes, and he won’t stop taking until they are nothing but corpses laid strewn around. Nothing on Kamino had prepared him for this… this _nightmare_ he’s living in.

Cody attempts to stuff down his anxieties. He knows their chances of escaping are slim. They have no mode of transportation to leave. Their escape pods are all destroyed. The only craft that can carry them to safety would be Grievous’ starfighter, which only fit a single rider, and Cody could never abandon his _vode_ even if it allowed for a way to alert the bases below. With those two out the way, their only chance of surviving the night would be to send a signal down to the bases below, and even that was impossible. Unless…

He ponders over the latter idea for a few moments. It was risky, suicidal even. There were so many ways it could go wrong. But he knows that it’s their only option.

“Wooley,” he calls, and the person in question perks up at his name, “when you tried to send the signal to Windu below, do you have any idea why it didn’t work?”

“No, sir,” Wooley responds. “I don’t know why. It can’t be the diagnostics we ran on it in the morning. It has to be something with the reactor.”

“The reactor?” 89 suddenly speaks up from their close huddle with Watcher in the back. “A few of my buddies had mentioned something of an electrical malfunction with the machine around late afternoon. Technical problems, nothing too serious. Think they had been working on it when the alarm went off.”

Cody curses under his breath. Of course something like this would happen just the day before the satellite would be in operation, no less just when they are hijacked by a renowned _Jetii_ Killer. “So the only way to send a signal down to the outpost below will be to go to the reactor, finish up what the crew started.”

“Yes, sir. It should be pretty simple to get it working again.” 

“What are you thinking, sir?” Nikita asks Cody. Her brows are knit tightly, already suspecting what Cody is saying. She was always good at reading people. 

Cody didn’t bother to hide what he was planning. “All of you stay down here and don’t move.” He nods his head up to the floor above in the direction of the reactor room. “I’m going to try to fix the satellite.”

“What?” Willow wrenches herself from Nikita’s chest to stare at her commander in horror. “You can’t! It’s too dangerous to go there!”

“I second that.” Sprint levels a glare at Cody, eyes glowing golden brown in the shine of the flashlight illuminating the space. “You do realize you’re the most important person here, right? What if Grievous catches you in the act? He’ll kill you, and the rest of us will be doomed by the time the Count arrives.”

“We can’t just sit around here and hope for some miracle,” Cody retorts sternly. “If we want to make it through tonight, we need to get that signal up and running.”

“We can go with you—” 

“No. I need you all to stay here. In the case I don’t come back, and Grievous finds me, do as I did and get that signal down to the general. Escort the other men to safety as well. Am I clear?”

“But—” Wooley begins, but Cody leaves no room for argument.

“I said, am I clear?”

His _vode_ stare at him indefinitely, attempting to come up for more arguments against their commander’s plan, but Cody’s too stubborn. He’s not going to budge an inch. He’s not about to sacrifice the lives of more of his brethren, not when they have an actual chance of survival now. 

Eventually their shoulders slump in defeat. “Yes, sir,” they utter in hesitant agreement.

“Good.” Cody is about to lift up the panel above him to sneak out towards the reactor room at the center of the station when someone catches his arm. He angles his head down to find Iuya, who had not spoken the entire meeting, gripping tightly to prevent him from leaving. Her eyes are puffy and bloodshot, and tear tracks are fresh as they cascade down her rose-tinted cheeks.

“Wait,” she croaks. It is as if her vocal chords have been ripped violently from her throat, wrenching Cody’s heart. “Let me come with you.”

Cody stares at her incredulously. “Absolutely not—”

“You need someone to keep an eye on you and keep Grievous distracted if he does find you,” she explains, pulling on his arm desperately. “Please, please let me come.”

“Kid, you don’t understand how dangerous it is out there,” Cody tells her, gripping her shoulders tightly, avoiding the bandage that served as a grim reminder of what she had just endured. “That man up there is not like any clanker or commander around here. He’s a natural-born _killer_. He’s killed dozens and dozens of innocents. Look what he did to you. To all of us. You need to stay down here with the others. Let me handle this.”

“I do understand!” she cries out, visibly offended. “I know who he is, and I know what he’s done. But I’m the only one who can hold him back. I’m the one with the lightsaber. I can protect you!”

“Hate to agree, but the kid’s right,” Sprint admits. Cody swivels around to him, a surge of protectiveness coursing through him.

“The hell do you mean?” Cody growls. “You want to send a _child_ —?”

“Trust me, I don’t like the idea either. But at least with her by your side, you have a chance of coming back in one piece.” His features soften as he addresses Iuya. “You’ll keep him safe, right kid?”

Iuya nods. “I promise.”

“Commander, please,” Nikita urges him. “Take her with you. She’ll be safer in your hands anyway.”

“Yeah! C’mon, sir.” Wooley sends him a pleading gaze, along with the rest of his brethren. Cody can see how much they care for his safety, and when he turns back to Iuya, he sees the desperation and pleading in her amber irises. She was just as stubborn as he was. He almost curses her for it. For her compassion and kindness that he was fond of the minute they had exchanged names, thinking of her as his own _vod’ika_ though he refused to admit it. She takes up his hands, gently squeezing his fingers. 

“Please, Commander,” she begs. Cody utters a sigh of defeat. He could not argue any further — they were running on borrowed time, and it would not be long until Count Dooku arrives with his reinforcements to overtake the satellite. His troops were counting on him. And he does appreciate the idea of having the Padawan within eyesight, where he would be able to protect her and know that she will be safe.

“Alright,” he tells her, but his voice still holds its stern demeanor. “But stay by me _at all times_. No running off, no nothing. You got it?”

“I got it.”

“Good.” Cody releases the grip on her narrow shoulders, releasing a shuddering breath. “Good.”

After lifting up the panel and observing the hallway to make sure that they are completely empty, he pushes back the panel of the small chute and climbs out, hauling Iuya up afterwards. He nods to his _vode_ , saying that if he was not back within the hour then they would take up the task of sending the signal themselves, taking in the melancholy sight of their faces once more and praying that it won’t be the last. Wooley offers him a small wave. Cody nods back. He closes the panel as quietly as he can, before he and Iuya make their way to the reactor room at the center of the station.

  
  


They creep down the hallway to the reactor room previously under construction. Their steps are light and quick as they reach the staircase at the end, the entranceway sealed off by a metal door that had been put in place a few days ago, a panel controlling it to the side of the door. Cody shoves down the waves of paranoia creeping up him, not allowing himself to experience more than the hammering of his heart. They were incredibly exposed here. It makes his skin crawl, hating to hear the mechanical steps of the cyborg killer marching around the base killing his _vode_.

Cody hacks into the panel on the side of the wall, giving it a few taps before the door slides open, the sound echoing throughout the corridor. The sound makes him grimace. Perhaps Grievous would be too far away to have heard that, but Cody doesn’t want to get his hopes up. “Come on,” he whispers to Iuya, and he leads them down the staircase to the main room.

They finally reach the reactor room, opening up to the large and familiar cylindrical mechanism in the center of the room, connected to the satellite disk above the base. The panels on the walls and ceiling are shut tight unlike how they have been a week ago, the wires that have been hanging from pipes and spilling from crevices in the floor gone. There was an orifice present at the base of the reactor, a toolkit discarded to the side of it. Cody runs over to inspect the open vent while Iuya remains at the staircase, a hand on the hilt of the saber on her belt to work as a lookout.

Retrieving a flashlight from the knocked over toolkit, he shines a light through the rectangular orifice and peers through it to observe the damage. Near the opening, the structure of the opening looked in order. The wires in place and the pipes and rods were in perfect condition, but as he leans closer, he notices something. Near the back of the section, several plugs, wires, and even tools were strewn about, like someone had been pulling them out and left them there. The crew that had been working on the small chamber must have been halfway through their maintenance when the alarm had sounded, and it seemed that the explosions on the west end of the base had accommodated the mess further. Still, it seems that all there was to do was continue their work and get the satellite functioning.

He glances over at Iuya, gaze still trained on the staircase outside the entranceway. “Stay out here while I get this satellite up and running,” he instructs her. The youngling nods and unclips her blade, standing guard while Cody crawled into the hole. He brings the toolkit along with him and keeps his flashlight on hand, and begins to work on repairing the satellite.

As he does so, he sends occasional glances down the Padawan’s way, making sure she is still within sight and has not wandered too far out from his vicinity. She is fumbling awkwardly with her lightsaber, face hidden from this angle. Cody knows she’s afraid. It’s a gut feeling. He can only guess how hard it must be for her, cut off from her Master with no hope of escape, so many massacred right before her eyes. She must be terrified.

( He feels some sense of solidarity in that. He’s scared too. )

“You doing okay, kid?” he asks once he manages to strip apart two tangled wires and place them into their complementary sockets on the walls around him. Iuya hums absentmindedly.

“I guess,” she answers.

“Don’t worry,” Cody grunts as he affixes a small plate that had been ripped off the wall back into its respective place. Those workers might as well have been taking the machine apart from the inside out. “Just stay right there, alright? I’m almost finished.”

“Okay.”

He works some more and curses when he attempts to plug a long stretch of thick wire into a nearby socket, a volt of electricity singing his fingertips beneath his gloves. He finds that, after testing it out, he would need another tool to place it into its respective place — but as he searches through the toolkit and the surrounding area, he is unable to find any pliers. Must have been lost during the scuffle. Remembering Iuya, he leans out the space to get the youngling’s attention. “You mind giving me a little help?” Iuya ducks into the reactor and follows to where Cody had been working earlier. “You mind putting this here wire into that socket for me?”

The girl nods and closes her eyes, stretching out her hand towards the wire. The end of the wire trembles for a few moments before it lifts into the air, and Iuya guides the metal end into the socket, the electricity crackling before snuffing out entirely once it clicks into place. Cody smiles at her, tries to at least. “Thanks, _ad’ika_.”

Iuya hums in response. She watches Cody for a while, occasionally assisting him when the work requires it. Cody doesn’t order her to stay out on guard. He’s eased by her presence besides him, greatly preferring her to be by his side as he repaired the reactor. Though Iuya is pursing her lips, unspoken words she attempts to hold back until the dam breaks. 

“I’m sorry.”

Cody stops working, swiveling around to look at Iuya after her sudden outburst. “What for?”

“I— I was supposed to protect them.” Iuya had been holding back the tears that now were cascading down her striped cheeks in full force. She pulls up her knees to her chest, staring down at the floor with resent. “I was supposed to protect everyone. That’s… that’s what a Jedi is supposed to do. But— but I failed. Everyone’s dead because of me. It’s all my fault.”

“No,” Cody responds. He crawls over to her and wraps his arms around her trembling form, bringing her close to his chest and resting her head on his shoulder pauldron. “No, no, no. Don’t think that way. What happened back there was not your fault. You tried all you could.”

“But it wasn’t enough!” she cries. Her hands rested on Cody’s chestplate as she buried her head into his collarbone. Cody reaches up and softly pets her lekku, attempting to aid the sorrowful sobs leaving her brittle form. “I’m supposed to be a Jedi, to serve and protect others. But I couldn’t move, I was so scared. I’m _still_ scared, and I don’t know what to do, and— and—”

“Iuya, listen to me,” Cody tells her. He gently grabs her by the shoulders and has her crane her neck up to face him. He lifts a hand to her cheek and wipes off a fresh trail of tears that fall from her amber eyes. “You can’t blame yourself for being afraid. You can’t blame yourself if you don’t know what to do either. You’re just a kid, it’s normal to be afraid and experience those feelings. What’s not good is to let those things get the best of you.”

Cody seethes internally as he says these things. _She shouldn’t be here_. She shouldn’t be in the center of a war, shouldn’t have to fight for some higher power at the risk of her life. She should be studying back at the Jedi Temple, hanging out with her friends, training with her Master and aiding those in need. She should not be forced to watch bloodshed, nor concern herself with it. War may have been Cody’s childhood, but it shouldn’t be Iuya’s. Sweet, benevolent Iuya, who lit up every room she walked in. Iuya, who Cody wants to keep safe with every fiber of his being.

“You’re a strong girl,” he tells her. “I’ll watch your back, just like how you watch mine. We’ll be alright. Okay?”

Iuya nods once Cody wipes the rest of her tears away, her lips twitching upwards just enough to light up the dark space they reside in. “Okay.”

Cody smiles. “That’s my girl. Now come on, we’re almost finished here.”

A minute later, they had successfully repaired the reactor-satellite. Cody takes up the panel of the reactor, sealing up the orifice and leaves the flashlight he had found inside of the toolkit to the side. They retreat back up the staircase, finding the corridor empty just as they had hoped. Now all they had to do was sneak all the way to the main deck at the front of the station, where they would send the signal to General Windu without alerting Grievous of their intentions. 

They make their way down the winding hallways of the base, careful not to make loud footsteps as they neared the main deck. They enter through the mess hall, which was on the direct path to the deck, larger than even the barracks that occupied the south end. Across the walls his troops had set up personalized decals, such as photos of pin-up girls and posters depicting the war effort, the signature clone helmets printed onto each one. Cody can see that among the trays of leftovers the men had been eating for dinner, there were discarded buckets alongside them. One of them was Vexer’s, the signature whirlpool in tangerine above its visor. Cody only looks at it once.

They reach the end of the cafeteria, entering some sort of crossroads of three different corridors. The one in the middle is an elongated hallway thicker than most, leading straight to the set of blaster doors that guarded the main deck from the rest of the others. Victory seemed so close. They just needed to go a few more paces.

Then Cody hears a scream to his right. His head whips around to the sight of one of his brothers, Frey, his body thrown from a room and smashing against the wall of the right corridor. Cody freezes. Frey’s bloody, clearly having been a part of a desperate struggle, his body scarred head to toe and blood seeping into his long golden locks. His eyes are dazed, but he manages to look at Cody, pupils shrinking as he realizes the commander is right in front of him.

“C— Commander,” Frey whispers, a single tear falling down his cheek. “Help.” His _vod_ ’s eyes roll up into the back of his head. His twitching muscles go still. 

Then out of the room that Frey had been violently attacked, a demon walks out, his scarlet cloak now adorned with the crimson of his _vode_. His steps drag with a metal strife before slowing to a halt. His head nearly reaches the ceiling above them. It is not until the blight cranes his neck to regard Cody and Iuya that he realizes that they should have booked it towards the main deck the instant they knew Grievous was here. He had been so shaken still at the sight of Frey, sunny and energetic Frey, killed before his very eyes. Now Grievous knows they are here.

“Iuya,” he calls to the youngling by his side, who clings to his arm in a death grip. “Run.”

They sprint down the stretching hallway, running as fast as their brittle legs could take them, Grievous hot on their tail. He is crawling on all fours, arachnid-like with each of his joints squeaking with each movement, slitted eyes trained straight on them. Cody grabs Iuya’s arm to pick up their pace, but it’s not enough. Grievous only gains on them, until there is only a few feet of distance separating them. It does not bode well that the hallway seems endless, and the doors are but an image they could never grasp.

The blaster doors are only a few feet away. Closer. And closer.

Grievous gains on them. Closer. And closer. 

They finally reach the blaster doors, and Cody sprints straight for the panel on the side of the doors, slamming the side of his fist against it and watching the blaster doors finally open. He feels someone pull him by the arm and shove him inside the room, and he barely has time to regain his senses when he sees Iuya face Grievous and stretch out her arms. With the will of the Force, she throws Grievous’ metal body down the corridor, the general silent as he flies aimlessly through the air. Iuya smashes her hand against the panel inside of the main deck, and the blaster doors slide shut.

They’re both breathing heavily. Cody comes forward to rest a hand on Iuya’s shoulder, bending over just a bit to lean his hand against his knees in a means of catching his own breath. “You good?” he asks her. 

Iuya nods. She looks ready to faint, so Cody allows her to lean against him to retain her balance. Cody rubs comforting circles across her back. “What you just did there? Saved our butts. Great work.”

Despite the direness of the situation, the Padawan manages to smile at him, the beam of her features enough to ease Cody’s exhaustion. “Thank you.”

_CLANG!_

The sound disrupts the sweet moment between them, the blaster doors of the main deck shaking under the weight of a driving force pounding into it. Then comes the sound of a lightsaber being activated, muffled yet sinister, before the blade begins to cut its way through their only protection. Cody bolts over to the panel on the side of the door and activates the second set of blaster doors that was meant for dire emergencies. He curses when he finds that the extra layer of protection had already grown molten hot from the putrid green blade, slowly cutting its way through to them.

“Stay right there!” he shouts to Iuya as he runs over to the holoterminal to one of the walls of the deck. “I’ll go send the signal!”

“Hurry!” she cries out, eyeing as the metal begins to melt. Cody bites back a playful retort of muttering that he’s already hurrying, and reaches the keyboard of the terminal in time. He begins tapping away at the computer, checking to see if the satellite was fully operational to send a signal. The diagnostics run as his heart hammers in his chest, begging for release from the prison as he hears Grievous’ blade force its way through the second set of doors.

“Come on, you _di’kut_ ,” he snarls at the computer screen. He sighs in relief when the screen turns a satisfying shade of green. Good. The satellite was fully operational. Now to send the signal.

He taps some more on the keyboard as Iuya backs away from the blaster doors, reading her golden lightsaber in her trembling fists, training her eyes on the impending force that awaited them on the other side. Cody’s fingers fly in a flurry over the terminal. He can hear his own breathing. Rapid, slowly descending. His head pounds with the fear. He begs for any gods above please, please send the signal.

Grievous has begun to bash against the door along with the lightsaber cutting through its metal hide. 

( _CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!_ and the sound deafens Cody’s ears, Iuya attempting to hold back the monster when— )

“Got it!” Cody yells out to Iuya, who takes her eyes away from the deteriorating door to look at the commander. Cody had sent the distress signal, with another one for good measure. The base below would then send a signal back to tell them they had received it. “But I don’t know if—!”

He barely makes his way through his sentence. The remaining metal of the door within the singed circle of the lightsaber is blown back, and knocks straight into Iuya, throwing her across the room. Cody cries out to her, but then feels it. He glances towards where General Grievous had leapt through the gaping jaw of the door, his frightening golden gaze piercing straight into him. Cody doesn’t have time to react. The Separatist killer barrels towards him and all he can do is duck before the demon’s blades meets his skin, and watches with horror as Grievous plunges two of his lightsabers into the holoterminal, killing it instantly. Preventing them from sending any more signals, or receiving one back. 

Grievous’ gaze drifts back down to Cody, sprawled out on the ground, his blaster rifle knocked out of his hand from Grievous’ sudden rush. The _demagolka_ jumps on top of him, preventing him from recovering back to his feet and pinning his torso to the floor. Cody attempts to fight back, throwing fists at him wildly as he attempts to land a hit on the demon, but he’s too nimble above him. At one of his last punches, Grievous leg catches his tightened fists, wrapping his mechanical appendages around his thin wrist, then comes the pressure and— 

_Snap!_

Cody screeches out in agony, the pain coursing through his entire arm as Grievous only cackles, tears beginning to spring up in his eyes. Grievous’ laugh above him is haunting, a hoarse and cacophonous monster of a laugh, echoing in his head as his vision swims from the torment of having the bones in his hands _shattered_ to pieces. He can vaguely see Grievous bring up one of his arms to finish him off, bringing it down like a cruel sense of justice.

Then a lightsaber, golden and bright, cuts through, blocking Grievous’ swing that had been determined to slice Cody’s head in half. Iuya, eyes flooding with pure fury as she drew up her aurelian blade, forcing Grievous’ arm up into the air. Cody takes that as his chance, putting all his strength both his legs as he kicks straight at Grievous’ crotch. Granted, it hurt like fucking hell. He’s not even sure if he’s got a crotch in there. But Grievous is knocked off-balance from the hit. Iuya charges at him with a crackling cry, beginning to duel the demon that had slaughtered those she had fought to protect.

They dance in a flurry of golden and cerulean sabers, Grievous tall and mighty while the rose-skinned Padawan was simple and quick. She dodges each of his strikes while he blocks all of hers, becoming blurs across the deck of the satellite station, draped in the glows of their blades and the blue of the Tiika Moon, just in the distance. Iuya fights with all her might, yelling out as he struck the _demagolka_ with all she had, no matter the burns she had sustained from the hunk of metal meeting her skin or the fear and stress that had taken over her since Grievous’ arrival.

Cody crawls over to where he sees his blaster rifle, abandoned on the floor, and snatches it up with his intact hand to fire at Grievous while he is distracted with the youngling. The Separatist general only grunts in response when he manages to chip a part of his arm off. Cody fires again and manages to amputate the secondary arm on his right, leaving him with only three blades to use. He turns his attention from Iuya, and charges at Cody. It’s a miracle that Cody rolls away to safety in time, cradling his broken hand to his chest as he does so.

They play around like that for a while, Iuya and Cody attempting to overwhelm the cyborg while Grievous only slashes at them harder. He moves quickly between the two of them, deflecting Cody’s shots while blocking Iuya’s swings. Even under the intensity of their fire, Grievous remains collected, silent save for his mechanized breathing as he parries each one of Iuya’s prods. Cody curses the monster each time he deflects one of his shots, seemingly unaffected by his attempts to incapacitate him.

Then, Grievous reels on him. Cody was standing on both his shuddering legs, blaster aimed straight at Grievous’ skull. He fires and fires at him but the man pays no mind as he runs toward him at full speed. Cody attempts to duck out of his way but Grievous is too swift, slicing off the muzzle of his rifle and casting it mindlessly to the side. Weaponless, Cody attempts to roundhouse the monster’s head, but Grievous manages to catch that as well. He nearly twists the commander’s foot out of place when he throws him like a rag doll, his body hitting the damaged holoterminal and slumping down to the floor. 

It doesn’t kill him. Cody groans as he places his working hand under his chest to support his weight, panting heavily as his vision swims. He cradles his fractured hand, hissing at the pain of having it take the brunt of the fall. His head aches desperately, fatigue gripping at him, his body urging for some semblance of rest. He looks back up from his place on the ground to see the battle.

( It was a mistake. A stupid mistake. )

He watches as the dance between Grievous and Windu’s Padawan grows in fiery intensity. He watches as Iuya manages to push back Grievous with the outstretch of the Force, his feet grinding against the ground and creating metal sparks between him and the floor. He watches as Iuya raises her weapon and launches herself at the _demagolka_ with no hesitation, facade twisted into seething rage with her charge. He watches as General Grievous wraps a taloned claw around Iuya’s neck before she even has a chance to scream, raising her into the air and choking her slowly. He watches her lightsaber fall to the floor as her hands claw desperately at her neck, gargling for air while her legs kick helplessly at the man holding her up. He watches Grievous bring the hilt of a deactivated lightsaber right to the center of her stomach.

And he watched — he _watches_ — as a blade of sickening blue plunges through her spine, and Iuya goes slack in the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ya'll shoulda seen this coming!! bitch!! don't act surprised!! i'm sorry.
> 
> translations:  
> ad'ika: little child  
> di'kut: idiot


	5. falling stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You hold that blade like a child,” he finally growls. His voice is a cacophonous drawl, only stirring up the caldera that was bubbling like acid in Cody’s stomach. “Give it to me. It does not belong to you.”
> 
> “Doesn’t belong to you either,” Cody retorts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so sorry, this came out pretty late!! i was supposed to update it a little earlier but i decided to be a dumbass and not edit it till last night so.. yeah. this chapter took a while, but otherwise, i'm pretty glad of how it came out. i've been thinking of writing this chapter for so long.
> 
> mando'a translations at the bottom!! i need to get better at using it more.

The sound that wrenches out of Cody’s chest is not his own. It is horrid and cracking, his entire body shaking with the wretched scream that howls from his mouth. He cannot breathe, lungs constricting so tight as he shakes with the shouts that are ripped from his bruised and battered form. He’s never screamed this loud before, this pain he feels in the present reminding him of the agony when he was marred down and left with a crimson scar. He can’t speak or think of anything except the young girl whose name he calls out as his chest bursts with his desperate howls. In a single moment, the ground is torn from beneath him.

Iuya only gasps when the saber juts through the curve of her spine. Its gleaming edge shines against her rose skin, clean and effortless. Her hands freeze in her attempts to unlatch the talons curled around her throat, falling to her sides slackened. Her legs cease their struggle and dangle uselessly in the air. She falls silent, not even a whimper exiting her mouth.

And Grievous… Grievous only laughs. A deep, hollow laugh devoid of any humanity, of any soul that had once inhabited the meat beneath the metal of his body. He deactivates the lightsaber, the blazing energy sliding out from the smoking crevice in her spine, and returns it beneath his cloak with a flourish. He then releases his grip on the youngling’s neck and lets her body drop to the floor.  _ Hard _ . The sound of her body hitting durasteel echoes throughout the room, only solidifying that Cody was not hallucinating, not dreaming of this nightmare.

( So many bodies. So many  _ vode _ . Dead. Lifeless, gone. And now Iuya’s gone too. )

And Cody lays there, can only lay there when Grievous kneels by the child’s shivering form, the little girl Cody had loved and protected writhing in the agony as she clings desperately to life. Grievous reaches for the golden lightsaber by her side. Upon that sight, Cody feels it. Feels his fists clench, his eyes narrow and his chest string tight with fury. His body shaking,  _ writhing _ as he looks upon Grievous’ emotionless facade, full of nothing but greed and malice. He grits his teeth as he places his intact hand beneath his body and pushes himself up, rising to his feet that threatened to buckle.

He ignores how his body aches the single step he takes in the direction of the Kaleesh. He stands upright and focuses only on the demon. He knows what he is about to do is reckless, but he doesn’t care.

He takes off into a sprint, lunging for the monster. As he does so, he grabs the nearest object he could find — his blaster rifle, gleaming black and singed of its muzzle. Grievous notices his approach when it is too late. Cody reels back his arm, takes a few moments to aim, and chucks the rifle straight at Grievous’ head. It makes its mark. The blaster rifle lodges into Grievous’ left eye, the sharp edge of the weapon digging straight into his pupil and throttling his skull backward.

The cyborg teeters back with screeches of wailing agony, hands flying to his eyes as he stumbles back from Iuya’s injured body. Cody takes that as his opportunity. He clips Iuya’s lightsaber to his belt, sweeps up her form, and leaps out the opening in the blaster doors.

He makes a break for the mess hall down the hallway. He can hear Grievous’ mechanical shrieks in the room still, shrill and horrific as the demon promises him a torturous demise, but Cody doesn’t care right now. He only cares about the little girl in his arms, light as a feather yet heavy as a burden simultaneously, her form dangling from his arms. In the center of her stomach is the wound, its  _ dawoor  _ nearly having Cody vomiting. It smelled of burning flesh, unlike the buttercup aura that Iuya always exerted, tainted by the blade of a saber.

Iuya was going to die. Fuck, Cody couldn’t let her die.

After passing through the mess hall, Cody passes corridor after corridor, searching for a place to hide. He had no idea how long Grievous would be incapacitated from the hit he had taken to the eye, but he doubts that it would be enough to stop him from looking for them. They needed somewhere safe, somewhere to help Iuya. He ponders as his legs burn with his run, and it hits him. The medbay. Of course. Now that he has something to work upon, Cody surges with adrenaline, and he heads down to the medical bay.

As he makes his way south to where the medical bay was, he is greeted more by the presence of death. He finds troops scattered across floors and slumped against walls, bodies contorted into horrific angles and missing several limbs. Most are bloodless, cut down by the slice of a lightsaber or crushed in the skull. Others are much more gruesome, faces marred by metallic talons and throats ripped from their necks. There’s more and more and they just keep piling up, and Cody recognizes each one of them. So many. Terry, Little, Qi’ton; every person Cody had grown close with over the past week, now dead.

Grievous had succeeded with his goal, had succeeded a long time ago. When Cody had sent his brothers, sisters, his  _ siblings _ to scatter, it had been to their deaths. No matter what they could have done, Grievous had found them, and no haven could ever save them from such a cruel fate. The guilt gnaws at Cody, realizing that all he had done to protect his  _ vode _ , his life and blood, had been for nothing. So many bodies, and Cody wishes he had just kept everyone in one place. If he had just kept everyone in one place, he would’ve had the chance to protect them. He wouldn’t have abandoned them to their deaths.

“Cody…?” Iuya whispers, her voice weak and scratchy, a discordant note so unlike the sweet melody she chimes every morning. 

Cody is pulled from his thoughts. He can’t focus on anything other than the present moment. Not yet. Not until he can save Iuya.

“I’m here,  _ Iu’ika _ ,” he promises. She’s so pale, the rosiness he’d always been fond over in her cheeks fading away, color slowly draining from her face. He’s running out of time. Her eyes are glazed and unfocused, and she has trouble keeping them open. Cody tries to adjust his hold on her, tilting her head up so she can face him. He needs to keep her occupied. He wasn’t going to let her die. “Just look at me, alright? Stay with me.”

“Hurts,” she whimpers. Cody’s heart wrenches.

“I know it does,  _ ad’ika _ ,” he says. “Just hold on tight. I’m right here, just keep fighting. We’re almost there.”

Finally, they make it to the medbay. Cody dashes to the door a few meters away from them in order to access the control panel, shifting Iuya’s weight to one arm in order to unlock it. His fingers are so frantic and uncalculated. He manages to mess up the passcode several times in his haste. Finally, the pad turns green, and the doors slide open. Cody enters, speaking to Iuya with soothing tones. “You’ll be alright, kid. I’ll get you fixed up. Don’t you worry—”

He freezes.

He’s met with absolute carnage. Slashes lay siege against gray metal walls, the posters and whiteboards and cabinets all ripped and destroyed by the work of a sword, leaving nothing but ruin in its wake. Drawers where the bacta patches had been kept were torn from their hinges and devoid of contents; the bandages have been scattered around the floor and burned to black; even the operating table was sliced in half. The medical bay, where Cody tended to his injured brothers and offered consolation to his weary medics, is an echo of what it once was.

There’s nothing left. The emergency rations, bandages, all the supplies had been raided. Several corpses were strewn about the room, adding more to the body count of brethren lost. Upon this sight, all hope of saving Iuya, gone.

Cody stumbles back out the door. It’s a shot through the heart.

“Cody…” Iuya whispers. “What… is it?”

Cody fails to stop the small hiccup that escapes his throat. He was too late. Finding himself unable to carry Iuya’s weight any longer from how his resolve crumbles, he gently lays her against the wall of the corridor.

“I’m sorry,” Cody rambles as he kneels by her side, voice breaking as he apologizes over and over again. “I’m— I’m so sorry—”

She’s so weak. Her frailty is never as evident as in this moment, where his skin hangs to her brittle bones like twigs and her cheeks become more sullen, life force draining from her with every second.  _ It’s all Cody’s fault. _ He should have done something. Anything to prevent this from happening. He should have kept her in that goddamn vent, safe and alive and away from Grievous. He should have protected her when he saw what was happening. But he failed. He has to watch as Iuya lay dying in his arms because of his mistake.

“Cody?” Iuya calls out to him. The commander lifts his head up to face her.

“Yes,  _ Iu’ika _ ?” he asks her.

Iuya’s eyes shine golden amber in the fluorescents of the corridor, gleaming a bright aurelian that no other star could compare. She looks… calm. She was not crying, no tears streaming down her cheeks as it had down in the reactor, almost in understanding. Like she knew what would happen to her, and had accepted it. “Did I… did I do good?”

Cody swallows back the lump that had grown in his throat, his eyes filling with tears that he refused to let fall. Such a simple question, yet it strings Cody’s heart tight enough to kill him. Gently, he reaches down to take one of the Padawan’s hands that lays limp against her hip, interlacing their fingers together. Even on the brink of death, her hand still radiated that familiar warmth through the leather of his glove, easing all tension and stress in his head. Yet at the same time, it only adds to the sadness, as he squeezes her fingers tight.

The look that Iuya gives him resembles the one she had given him when she had placed the hilt of her blade in his hand, innocent and trusting. She trusted him. She  _ still  _ trusted him. Even as she lays dying, she still trusted him to be her lifeline. There is no anger or sorrow or fear on her facade, only hope. She had accepted her death with open arms, something a child should never have to face, and she trusts Cody to be by her side as she goes. And it  _ hurts _ . It hurts so bad that Cody can barely stand it.

So, holding back a sob, Cody smiles at her. A sad yet loving smile. “Yes. You did so good. I’m so proud of you.”

Iuya smiles back. She’s satisfied with his answer, coming to terms with herself. She squeezes Cody’s hand back, her golden eyes leveling a warm and kind gaze with him, momentarily easing the ache in Cody’s chest. It is by that amber light that he remembers the lightsaber still clipped to his belt, and he hastily unfastens it to hand it to the girl.

She shakes her head in refusal.

“No,” she whispers. “Keep it.”

Cody stares at her in disbelief. “Kid…” 

Iuya doesn’t budge. She gently pushes it back to him, taking his hand and clasping it between her smaller ones with the golden hilt in his grasp. “I want you to have it… so… so you can protect them.”

“I…” Cody searches for an excuse. He couldn’t possibly keep this, not when it belongs with its rightful owner, but Iuya’s heartfelt gaze full of trust stops him. He hesitantly nods, and brings the lightsaber close to his chest in a silent promise. “I’ll keep it safe. I promise.”

“I know you will,” Iuya giggles, revealing the adorable little tooth gap in her mouth. She then descends into a fit of coughs, and Cody gently grabs her shoulders to have her rest comfortably against the wall. He presses their foreheads together — a little  _ kov’nyn _ — closing his eyes as he silently whispers a final promise to the young girl, who he cared for and cherished with his entire being, listening to her breaths become slow and hitched.

“Please,” she whispers, voice weaker than before. She lifts up her hand to softly caress his face. “Don’t blame yourself, okay?”

Cody couldn’t make that promise, and he definitely couldn’t stop blaming himself, but he nods slightly in an effort to say he will try. Iuya takes it. Her golden eyes twinkle like the stars above, and she gives him one last smile.

“Thank you.”

Her eyes flutter shut. Her hand on Cody’s cheek falls down to her lap.

Cody doesn’t know how long he kneeled there besides Iuya’s now motionless body. He doesn’t remember breathing in those moments. He had placed a hand on the pink knuckles of her fallen hand, but she didn’t react. He flipped over her wrist to check her pulse. Empty. The familiar thrumming of her heart was silenced. The radiant warmth that shines in the darkest of times now fades away. It’s cold. So cold.

Then come the tears. Cody starts to cry.

Cody’s only cried a few times in his life. He had cried when he had gotten the scar that runs crimson down his cheek. He had cried after the First Battle of Geonosis, the first battle where Cody realized just how heartless this war was going to be. Cody rarely cries because he can’t afford to. To let himself break down in front of other people, their stable and level-headed commander shattering to pieces, would only hurt others. He kept others strong by keeping himself strong, and he refused to let his emotions become the best of him.

But Iuya. Iuya. She was a  _ child _ . Barely fourteen, young and sweet, so compassionate and loving. Who wanted nothing but the best for others, to protect them with all her power. She had brought a new light to Cody’s own life. She had the potential of becoming a great Jedi Knight.

And now she’s dead.

The realization  _ shatters  _ Cody. He sobs helplessly, the tears streaming down his face as he cries hunched over his  _ ad’ika _ ’s form. He squeezes Iuya’s hand again, begging her to come back, begging her to return despite how she never will, but receives no response. She lays there, lifeless, her melodic voice snuffed out like the light of a candle. And it only increases the pain in Cody’s chest as drops of his tears fall down to his lap, cascading down his shin guards while he cries. She never deserved this, she shouldn’t have come here.

( She’s the first child Cody had seen die in this war. He’s seen children enslaved, captured, and killed out of eyesight. This is the first time Cody witnesses the death of a one, and it burns. It burns. )

He sits there for stars know how long weeping over her. He desperately wants to feel hopeful, any sort of relief knowing that she was finally at peace, that she would not have to witness any more violence in this war. But Cody is numb. All he feels is emptiness. A lonely, bitter and desolate emptiness. 

When he does leave, he reaches up to press a small farewell kiss to the base of her striped lekku. He lets the last few of his tears fall before he wipes his face clean, settling back into his stoic demeanor. He could not afford to sit around here sobbing when he still has a job to do. He needs to get back to his remaining  _ vode _ , make sure they are safe. He gives the girl a final look before rising back to his feet, and making his way back to where the others were.

He can’t help the sigh of relief when he calls out to them and the panel tilts up, revealing Wooley’s honey-brown eyes in the darkness of the small chamber. His eyes go wide at the sight of the commander. His  _ vod’ika _ pushes out the metal panel and assists in easing Cody down the shaft. Once inside, Wooley reaches up and slides the panel back over the cramped space, blotting out the fluorescents above. Sprint flickers back on his flashlight. All six of the troops left down in the shaft are present, and they lean forward to look at their commander with eager eyes.

“Well?” Nikita asks him. “Did it work?”

“Yeah,” Cody responds. A collective exhale permeates throughout the group.

They told Cody all that had happened while he was down fixing the satellite signal. Grievous had been stalking out the survivors since he was gone, slowly downing their numbers one by one. A few troops had been found around where the group was hiding, their screams bouncing off the walls of the corridors as Grievous slaughtered them one by one. He had passed by their hiding spot a few times, but fortunately did not take notice of the panel embedded in the floor, and they remained in there due to Cody’s orders. Sprint and Nikita were about to head to the main deck just as Cody returned.

All of them appeared and sounded relatively fine, though they had been pretty shaken up about the skirmishes happening near their location. Cody is just glad they’re safe. He doesn’t want to think of the dozens of other clones killed, scattered around hallways and rooms. 

Wooley suddenly frowns, noticing the empty space besides Cody. He realizes that the youngling that left with him had not yet returned. “Wait, where’s Iuya?”

Cody tries to answer. He really tries. But a lump forms in his throat and kills any words instantly. The waves of grief return, brutal and agonizing, and prevent him from speaking any further. He can only manage a sad, broken look to his brethren. Wooley’s eyes go wide in realization. As do the others.

“Oh…” Sprint whispers. Guilt overcomes his facade. “Oh no…”

Willow gasps in horror, clasping her hands over her mouth as tears once again fill her puffy red eyes. Nikita reaches out and brings her closer, though as a comfort to the rookie or to herself, Cody does not know. “How…?” Nikita asks him, voice cracking.

Cody doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t even think he  _ can _ talk about it. The memories are still too fresh in his mind.

And he can’t stop thinking of Grievous. Grievous. That  _ bastard _ . He killed her. He killed all of them. He… he needed to pay for this.

After seconds of the groups’ mournful silence, Wooley breaks it. “So… what do we do now?” He looks around the others frantically. “We’re not… we’re not going to die here, are we?”

Cody sits tall despite the ache in his ribs and places a hand on his little brother’s shoulder, feeling the younger tremble under his touch. He can’t stress over Iuya’s death right now. He needs to be strong for them until their rescue arrives. They needed someone to take charge, and as their leader, Cody was the one to do that. Despite how helpless he felt.

“No,” he answers to Wooley, voice calm. “We’re going to get out of here. We just have to wait.”

“Wait,” Sprint echoes. His mouth is pulled into a scowl. He looks just as guilty for Iuya’s death as Cody feels, curling into himself with a self-deprecating frown.

“For how long?” Willow asks him, peeking up from Nikita’s chest to ogle him with shining eyes. 

Cody ponders it for some time while the others wait for him to answer. They definitely cannot go back out there. All of their friends were completely wiped out, and though Cody had managed to injure the general for an indefinite amount of time, that did not mean he was any less of a threat. He’s seen what he’s capable of. He knows that a stab to the eye for him might as well be an inconvenience.

They would have to remain here, wait for General Windu to arrive with reinforcements and rescue them. But even those chances were slim. The signal may have not been sent to the outpost below or missed it entirely, or maybe Grievous would find their hiding spot and take them out before General Windu could arrive in time. They were hanging off a cliff here. Despite these odds, Cody knows that any other decision that could be made would no doubt result in their deaths. This was their best bet for safety. Grievous isn’t stupid. And Cody isn’t either. 

“However long it takes,” Cody replies, and that’s the end of the conversation.

  
  


They sit in the dark for what felt like hours. The cramped space had become muggy over time due to their perspiration, leaving the room smelling stuffy and unpleasant. Occasionally they would tilt up the panel above them to let in the fresh air, but only for a few intervals. For the most part, it was pretty quiet. There wasn’t any comfort in conversation now that they may be the only survivors left in the station. All they were able to do was wait for the moment when General Windu and his men would rescue them, which was becoming more unlikely as the minutes flew by.

Cody had taken to fumbling with Iuya’s lightsaber. It gleams in the beams of the flashlight, its golden coat still beautiful as gemstones. The metal is cold in his fingertips. The warmth that he had once felt when he clutched it for the first time had seeped away, leaving it chill to the touch. It did not feel as light as back then. It weighs him down in the center of his palm, like it has realized its master was no longer here. Holding it, it felt…  _ wrong _ . Wrong, in a way he can’t describe.

He had made a promise to Iuya. He would need to hold onto it for a little longer, wait for General Windu to come rescue them. From there, he’ll hand him Iuya’s weapon with condolences. 

Stars, Cody doesn’t even imagine how he’ll break the news to the general. What would he say? That he had the option to leave Iuya in their hiding space, and that he had the chance to prevent her from suffering such a terrifying fate? That he had the power to stop Grievous from landing that killing blow, yet he did nothing? That he failed to save her life, and had to hold her cold and lifeless body as he cried brokenly, the color drained from her face? What would he even say? What could he say except that he was sorry?

But still, it feels so  _ wrong _ to hold it, like he’s treading down a path he shouldn’t be going down. Looking at the amber hilt, it resembles painfully of Iuya’s own irises, kind and benevolent and full of spunk. He imagines her laughter that bounces off durasteel walls and feet that skip on their tip-toes, how she held this blade with unsteady grip yet a fierce determination. This lightsaber. It wasn’t Cody’s. It’s not like using General Kenobi’s lightsaber, where the man had trusted it with him more than anyone else. Something about this feels different, because he’s holding the blade of someone who had passed, and even though they granted it to him, the mere grip of it felt taboo to him. This saber belongs to Iuya, not him.

He couldn’t even think of using it. He sure as hell doesn’t deserve it. He could almost hear her playfully scolding him for breaking his promise to her.  _ Don’t blame yourself, okay? _ she had requested. And he can’t say he won’t.

Cody’s behavior made it clear that he did not want to talk about it. He’s glad that the others took this to heart, keeping their distance and grieving alongside him for the death of the Padawan. They knew he was the closest to her out of all of them, and knew that he needed some space to think. He just wishes he was in a better state to comfort them as well. He sat in the corner of the chute, just staring at Iuya’s lightsaber thinking of everything and nothing at all. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

He hears someone scoot closer to him. “ _ Ori’vod _ ?” Wooley asks.

“Yes, Wooley?” Cody doesn’t rip his gaze from the hilt of the golden saber, but he can see Wooley’s abstract reflection in the intricate metal, also staring at the weapon. 

There is shuffling to his side. Wooley cuddles up next to him in his small space within the corner of the chute, head resting on Cody’s shoulder pad in quiet solidarity. He doesn’t say anything except crossing his arms and staring down at the ground with a reserved expression. Cody sighs in response, shifting Wooley’s head so he is able to wrap his arm around the younger’s shoulders, bringing him closer to his side. He thinks back to a few hours ago, simpler than now, when he and Wooley were staring out into the far reaches of space, talking about nothing and everything. When they had been safe and in each other’s arms.

Cody just wants them all to be safe by the end of this. He imagines the stars outside this cage, white and glistening, and he prays that they will be saved by the end of the night.

Then outside, he hears it. The scraping of metal across durasteel floors, slow and grueling and electric volts to his ears. It echoes down the hallway intersecting with theirs, and Cody’s heart stops. Why? Why now? 

He signals Sprint to shut off his flashlight, and once again the space is plunged into darkness. The group falls silent, the only noise heard being the footsteps dragging down the hall.

The mechanized steps halt just at their corridor and all goes quiet for a few moments until a swivel is heard. Then the footsteps pick back up again. Right in their direction.

Wooley scooches closer to Cody. Cody wraps his arm tighter as the steps become louder, facing upwards at the darkened sky hidden beneath the panel. He holds his breath, clutching Iuya’s lightsaber as a means of comfort, so much that the elevations in its metalwork dig into his skin. He purses his lips to prevent any sound from leaving his mouth. There is a matter in the way in the steps approach, almost cautious in the way they sound. It fills Cody with dread, but he doesn’t know why.

The beast comes closer. And closer. And—

_ Iuya’s body. Down the hall by the medbay. Close to where they were. Grievous knows they’re nearby. _

He stops right above them.

_ Fuck _ .

The remaining seven in the small space hitch their breaths instinctively. None of them make a sound. Cody hears Grievous lift his metallic foot from the floor. Then…

_ SLAM! _

It shakes the panel above them, and the chute with it, making all of them stumble in their seats. Cody jolts, gripping Iuya’s lightsaber tighter in his fist but making no move to activate it. His breath quickens as he looks up above through the darkness. Atop them, Grievous’ breath hums with sick amusement, even stomping a second time to feel the jitteriness of the panel beneath him.

“Wooley,” Cody whispers. “Give me your blaster.”

Wooley doesn’t answer for a few moments. He’s frozen by Cody’s side, upright and most likely giving his commander a bewildered expression. “What?”

“Give me it.”

The familiar weight of slick black metal presses into his palm, and he adjusts it before pointing it directly at the ceiling. He hears the quiet shuffling of the others as they follow in his footsteps, their own blasters raising to the panel above. He nods to the others despite the darkness cloaking their vision. He knows what is about to go down, and steadies his breathing as he adjusts his one-hand grip. He feels no shock when talons of pure steel dig into the sides of the panel and rip their cover away.

They fire at Grievous despite how the light blinds their eyes, the  _ demagolka _ roaring under the sudden rage of blue penetrating his armor, though he does not falter in the ways that Cody had hoped. He tosses the panel away to the side and unsheathes one of his blades —  _ kebiin _ , blue, the color of the saber that had killed Iuya, the color that had taken her from him — and drives it deep into the floor of the chute, nearly cutting their knees off in the process. Cody barks out an order, and the others scatter out of the vent, falling back from the monster still unleashing heavy blaster fire.

Grievous unsheathes another saber from his collection, deflecting their shots with keen precision, the shots missing Cody’s own ear by a hair away. Cody keeps Wooley behind him as they back down the left corridor, their group scattered around still firing on the Separatist general.

Grievous parries one of the blasts, the deflected shot piercing 89 right through the chest. They gasp out from the pain, clutching their chest as Watcher runs over to them, but he’s too late. 89 is dead, and in another moment, Watcher joins them. Grievous swipes at the trooper, cutting his chest open with a jagged line of volcano red. He’s killed instantly.

“This way!” Cody bellows out, pointing to the left corridor. “Come on!” 

He begins to lead them out of the hallway when he hears a mechanized whirl from behind, and he splays out his hands to cease their run. Grievous lands in front of them with perfect balance, lightsabers ready at his side, giving Cody a dirty and disappointed glance. “Going somewhere?” From up close, Cody can see that the eye that he had pierced with his own blaster was hidden beneath a bacta patch. He recognizes it — he had seen it inside of the medical bay from his visits there, a part of the missing stash after the room was shambled. He didn’t just destroy their equipment, he was using it for himself.

Cody’s intact hand curls into a fist around Wooley’s blaster. He nearly tosses it away and reaches down for Iuya’s lightsaber, but he doesn’t. The guilt and the fear prevent him from unclipping it from his belt. He can’t use it, the memories still too fresh in his mind. He knows he’s being selfish and unreasonable, knowing that they were cornered by all sides, but he can’t bring himself to use it. Not if there’s another approach he can take.

“Commander?” Sprint asks him frantically, face contorted into panic. “What do we do?”

Cody releases a shuddering exhale. There was no more hope left. General Grievous had found them, and General Windu and his reinforcements were not here to rescue them. They were completely on their own. But Grievous doesn’t realize just how stubborn Cody is. He’s not going down without a fight. Not when he had the opportunity to rip the bastard to pieces. 

“We fight,” he tells them. Grievous needed to suffer. For killing their brothers. For killing Iuya. No matter what would happen to them, they were going to end this.

The clones nod, backing up a few steps. Cody raises a gloved hand into the air, holding up three fingers. Then two. Then one.

Then he points at Grievous, and they charge at him.

Cody manages to dip into a slide beneath Grievous’ swing upon his impending attack, knee guards grating against the floor with a high-pitched whine. He tosses Wooley back his blaster as he does so, and the curly-haired trooper aims straight at Grievous, dodging each shot that was deflected in his direction. His brethren fight with all they have, ducking each of the monster’s slices at their torsos, baring their teeth in raw defiance. Their eyes are blazing with unbridled rage and stubbornness, and Cody feels a sense of pride just by watching them.

Then come the falls. Grievous lunges forward and grabs Sprint by the neck, raising him into the air the same way he had done to Iuya. Nikita howls as she attempts to force him back down with blaster fire. It doesn’t work. With a single snap, Sprint goes slack. His body falls to the ground.

“Nikita!” Cody screams out when he sees his sister lunge in rage at the monster, punching him right in the jaw with a cry. He watches her entire hand fracture upon impact, but she wastes no time in seething with agony, taking out her blaster rifle and bludgeoning at his armor with every chance she had. She manages even to blast off one of Grievous’ arms. Cody and Wooley vault forward in order to help her, their own kicks and punches attempting to subdue Grievous. Willow stays behind, holding her own rifle to aid as a back-up.

Grievous is almost confused by how much they struggle angrily against them. But he isn’t winded. He takes each roundhouse and slap with only a grunt, allowing each to pierce his hide before his eyes narrow down to the redhead attacking him, her dark brown irises coursing with fury for the two brothers she had lost. Cody realizes what is happening just as it is too late, and watches with horror as Grievous swipes upward with his blade, cutting the front of Nikita’s torso into halves down the center of her throat. Her eyes go wide.

Cody watches her fall. Nikita’s scarlet hair cascades around her like a crown on the ground. Her eyes drift upwards to look at the sky behind the ceiling. They never move again.

He and Wooley try to continue the offense, attempting to continue the fight when Grievous tucks away both hilts of his remaining sabers and grabs both of them by their wrists, raising them into the air as they struggle against him. His grip was one of iron. No matter how much Cody struggled, he could not escape. Willow lunges forward to aid them but Grievous lifts up a foot and pins her to the floor by the chest, her head knocking against the ground with a clang.

Wooley struggles harder than Cody, cursing and jeering at the killer, sucking in before spitting right in General Grievous’ face. The man stares at him for a few moments, then adjusts his grip to the back of his chest plate. He smashes the boy against the ground.

Then he lifts him back up.

Smashes him back down.

Up, down. Up, down.

With each hit, Cody can hear the crack of each fractured bone. Each time he is lifted up, a new bruise arises on his baby brother’s face. His nose is broken, several teeth are chipped, his face is a shade of unforgiving violet. Grievous slams him repeatedly into the ground with increasing speed as Cody is screaming,  _ begging for him to stop _ . Then he stops. Cody can see Wooley’s face, tattered and worn by the beating it had taken. The clean, tangerine armor he had been so proud to paint across his shiny white armor was now dented beyond repair, his chest crushed within his guards from each slam. Grievous only scoffs, disappointed. He flings Wooley’s body away nonchalantly, and with an off-handed glance to the commander, he throws him as well.

Cody’s body slams into the wall — this time his skull taking the brunt of the attack. He slumps to the floor, his head throbbing and ringing with shrill pitch in his ears, everything around him muddled as he attempts to regain consciousness. He found it was difficult to breathe, blotted colors dancing in his vision, the ache and the  _ ache _ setting in him like a cold blanket. He wasn’t dead, no, but he wished he was, the left side of his head burning with agony as if something had ripped right through his skin. He feels something foreign dripping from it. He lifts up a tentative hand to the liquid streaming down his cheek, coating his fingertips. He brings it to his face. Red splotches over black. Blood. His scar. Reopened.

He’s hit with another flare of dizziness. The floor teeters beneath him as he battles to stay awake. No, he couldn’t afford to fall again. Not yet.

He lifts himself from the ground, his arms shaking with the full weight of his body, the plastoid-alloy now a burden that anchors him down. He lifts himself to a sitting position and brings a hand to his chest when the ache of his hunched body returns in a flood. His ribs had been fractured more from the impact. His broken hand had gone completely numb. His skull still throbbed with ache, on the brink of collapse just as his vision cleared up well enough to regain sight of his surroundings. Words spin around his head as he attempts to recollect. 

_ Satellite… satellite station… red lights… red and pink… pink and blue…  _ kebiin _ …  _ kebiin and ge’tal _ … satellite…  _ vode… vode  _ and station _ …  _ satellite station… dead…  _ ve’vut _ …. _

His vision clears just enough for him to focus on the body slumped on the opposite wall. He can see them. Curly dark hair, elaborate black ink across their temple, blobs that resemble sheep decorating each pauldron. His friend. His baby brother. Wooley… 

( Not Wooley. Please, stars, not Wooley. He couldn’t handle it. He’s lost too much. He couldn’t handle losing Wooley. )

Ignoring his own pain, he crawls desperately across the floor to reach his brother. He huffs with effort as he brings the boy up to a slouch against the wall, unresponsive to his touch. His face is mangled with fresh blood and dark bruises, hair a wreck and his eyes shut close. Cody forgets to breathe. “Wooley,” he whispers out, his voice croaky and desperate. “Wooley, answer me.” He shakes him with one hand, tears collecting and cascading down his face while a lump forms in his throat. He begs for Wooley to respond, to say anything, but he receives no answer. 

He reaches up a hand to his neck. There’s a pulse in there. Faint. 

Cody hears struggling from far away, pulled away from his brother to see the steel  _ demagolka  _ once more. A mechanical eldritch being, claws wrapped around the throat of a girl with armor shiny white, and oh please _ , not here, please not her too _ . Willow, her hair ripped from its topknot and dangling around her face as she gagged, clinging to the talons wrapped around her neck until  _ crack!  _ Her neck snaps.

Cody can’t move. He’s hunched over Wooley’s body, watching the last of the rookies fall victim to the hunter. Another body. The crack of Willow’s neck like so many others he had lost  _ breaks _ something in him. And he can feel it. The anger. A primal, raw anger he’s never felt before until now, one that settles deep into his skin. He ignores the screams of his legs as he stands shakily, stumbling forward like a drunk, hand going down to the lightsaber he should have used a long time ago.

The steel titan lets the rookie’s body fall onto the floor when he hears the activation of a weapon. He turns around and several meters ahead and facing him is the commander of the 212th, golden lightsaber in hand. Hilt in reverse grip, blazing edge intersecting the image of the killer before him, amber and ebony beauty aimed at him.

“ **_Murderer_ ** ,” Cody snarls with all his breath. 

Grievous inspects him as one would a cornered animal. He must have looked like one. Frothing with rage, barely standing on both his twitching legs, blood running down his cheek but he did not give a damn. The blood roars in his ears, his teeth bared like steel against steel. He stands in front of Wooley’s limp body, shaking violently, near collapse but he gave not a single shit. He trembles with his contempt. His breathing is scratchy and labored, lungs constricting tight in the prison of a fractured rib cage. His veins course with his fury, rage the only thing keeping him upright and fueling with hatred for the demon in front of him. Lusting for Grievous’ head to make up for all he has lost.

_ Murderer. _ He murdered them all. Vexer, Maple, Nikita. Iuya. He’s lost everything. Everything except Wooley. Grievous was not going to take him too.

So he stands there in a low stance, the tears falling down his cheeks and mixing with his own blood, the writhing  _ hatred and grief _ within him becoming his own weapon. He does not care if he is weak, helpless, terrified and traumatized and full of sorrow, holding a blade that does not belong to him and one he does not know how to wield. He stands there and looks at Grievous, hoping that he can see how much his eyes burn with fury.

Grievous stares back. Amusement, beneath his metal mask. Cody wants to slice it right off.

“You hold that blade like a child,” he finally growls. His voice is a cacophonous drawl, only stirring up the caldera that was bubbling like acid in Cody’s stomach. “Give it to me. It does not belong to you.”

“Doesn’t belong to you either,” Cody retorts. 

Grievous only cackles in monstrous delight. “I am the one who has slain that little  _ pest _ . It is rightfully mine. Give it to me, and maybe I will spare your life.”

The words only fuel his anger. Cody knows he’s lying; he doesn’t need a brain to figure it out. He adjusts the hilt of the shining blade in his hands, imagining cutting off Grievous’ filthy metallic head with the edge of it. 

“Rip it off my dead body.”

“That,” Grievous hums with intrigue, “could be arranged.”

He unclips the other lightsaber from his belt,  _ kebiin  _ and  _ vorpan _ , the dreadful and familiar sound echoing down the hallway. Grievous regards Cody, but makes no move to strike. He allows the commander to make the first move. And Cody nearly does when he hears footsteps behind him.

Several footsteps. He hears orders being called out, muffled shouts as stomps tread down the hallway behind him. He can almost recognize it if his head wasn’t so muffled. His voice. Wooley’s voice. His  _ vode _ .

Grievous takes notice of it as well, and sighs disappointedly. He deactivates the two blades that hang from his sides, placing them back beneath his darkened cloak. “I will spare your life today, commander. But only because I want you to serve a grim reminder of my power. I hope you are not so… shaken, if we do meet again. Farewell.”

The  _ demagolka retreats _ , his cloak fluttering behind him as he leaves the opposite way of the approaching troops and towards his starfighter docked in the west end. Cody’s still standing there, amber lightsaber in hand, his feet trembling when Grievous leaves his sight. It’s as if his putrid yellow eyes are still staring at him, slitted pupils piercing into his very soul.

“— Cody? Commander Cody?”

The muffled shouts are now right behind him, the clones of the 91st arriving to see the commander staring at blank space, the remaining of his own men left mangled on the ground. Wooley, unconscious, skull throttled and body limp. Willow and Sprint, necks angled in fatal positions; Nikita, a slash embedded into her opened chest. Watcher and 89, dead. And Commander Cody, paranoid in his stance, holding in his clutches a gleaming lightsaber that had belonged to a young girl now one of the body count that had piled up since the general’s arrival.

There’s shuffling behind him, and he feels several hands laying themselves on the back of his armor. He sees buckets of other troops, concealing their visages as they surround Cody, talking to him, but anything they had attempted to say was a discordant jumble to his ringing ears. Now when the adrenaline fades away, a wave of exhaustion hits him like a tide, his knees buckling beneath him. Iuya’s lightsaber deactivates as it falls out of his hand, and he nearly cripples to the floor if the men aren’t there to catch him. He can hear more voices, softer and frantic, as dark spots dance around in his head. He’s losing focus.

He sees someone circle around and approach his battered body, though their form was indistinguishable. He did not seem to be one of the others in armor though. Dark skin, no hair… he doesn’t have time to register who it is, feeling the person press a gentle hand on his cheek to wipe away the flow of blood from his opened scar. It is then under their touch that Cody heaves a final breath.

The voices fade away. Cody drifts into darkness.

  
  


Then lights.

  
  


Blinding lights.

  
  


Muffled talk.

  
  


Floating.

Thrumming.

Pulsating beneath his body.

  
  


Gray rooms. White lights. White lights in gray rooms.

  
  


Faces. 

Faces all around. 

Faces, his face. 

His face, all around. 

Jango’s face.

  
  


Jango doesn’t look like that.

Where is Jango?

  
  


More thrumming. 

More voices. Muddled voices. Melding together. Jango’s voice.

Where’s Jango? Jango?

  
  


He still can’t see.

  
  


Still can’t see.

  
  


He doesn’t think Jango’s coming back.

  
  


There's water around him. Water cooling him. Water rushing over him. Water choking him. Water soothing him.

No, it’s not water. Nevermind.

Water doesn’t feel like this. 

Water doesn’t make the skin writhe.

Water doesn’t have faces looking back at him. Faces don’t reside in water. Stop looking at me. Water doesn’t stop looking, and I can’t stop it from looking.

  
  


Jango, I’m scared.

  
  


Cody falls under again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> say goodbye to your hearts, you fucks. i'm sorry.
> 
> translations:  
> kov'nyn: headbutt, keldabe kiss  
> kebiin: blue  
> ge'tal: red  
> ve'vut: gold (i should have used this word a lot more ughhhh)  
> vorpan: green


	6. burning pyres

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ll be back, vod’ika,” he promises him, though he knows he cannot hear him. “I’ll be back for you, just you wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, okay. this one is... pretty long. and emotionally charged. haha.
> 
> the members of cody's batch are based from 'alpha-17's guide to cc cadets' by writehandman bc i really love his stories. also jango raising them basically as a father.. haha.. fuck. so yeah, i'm really excited cus now i'm getting to the actual meat of the story. wooh.
> 
> mando'a translations at the bottom!

_The day before CC-2224 had gotten his name, he was sitting next to Jango._

_It was after a long hard day of training. He and his_ **_buir_ ** _had just finished their first lessons on hand-to-hand combat, so the two were taking a small break before they would once again meet on the mat. CC-2224 was around four, he thinks. Eight in terms of nat-born years. He was growing taller by the day, battling with CC-3636 when it came to their batches’ height. CC-3636 was tallest, then CC-2224, then the twins and CC-6454. Jango said one day they would all be around the same height as he was, and CC-2224 could not wait for that day when he’ll finally be able to tease CC-3636 about his stunting growth._

 _Jango handed him a bottle of water and a fresh towel, and allowed the younger to climb up next to him on the bench and lay his sweating head on his_ ** _kebiin_** **_beskar_** _ **'gam**. Jango had glanced at him, and chuckled quietly, petting the soft curls growing on CC-2224’s head._

 _“You’re growing it out,_ **_ad’ika_ ** _?” he asks him in good humor. CC-2224 shakes his head._

_“No,” he replies. “Too much in my face. ‘ll cut it later.”_

_“Shame,” Jango responds. “Suits you.”_

_Suddenly, CC-2224 perks up from his rest on Jango’s chest when a thought hits him, looking up at his_ **_buir_ ** _with eager eyes. “Can you teach me some more words?”_

_Jango raises an amused eyebrow. “In the middle of your training?”_

_“You had to leave early yesterday,” CC-2224 had whined, pouting with a trembling lip as he looked up at him with the eyes of a lost hound. “I already memorized all the other words you told me. And you promised me today you would teach me more. You swore!”_

_“Alright, alright, settle down_ **_ad’ika_ ** _,” he chuckles, turning in his seat to face him. “Let’s see.”_

 _He begins once again to teach CC-2224 more words in Mando’a. He starts with a few basic ones, often ones that CC-2224 had secret knowledge of already due to the many conversations he and his_ **_vode_ ** _had in the foreign language. He was taught more grammar by request (Jango, scoffing, had told him that he might as well have been his dialect professor in contrast to being his overseer), and CC-2224 listened with keen ears as Jango taught him more phrases and words, his_ **_buir’s_ ** _hand never leaving their petting gestures on the soft raven curls above his head._

 _CC-2224’s had a love for Mando’a since Jango had accidentally introduced it to him. He remembered the first word he learned._ **_Vode_ ** _. Brethren. Brothers, sisters, siblings. Jango had used it when addressing the batch under his personal training, and since then they had been begging him to teach them the new and exciting language. CC-2224’s never liked Basic all that much. It was too bland, impersonal; he had been drilled every word written in Aurebesh so far up his head that it got tiring to speak it after a while. Mando’a was something more personal. Something more… him. It was Jango’s language, so he was determined to speak it._

 _Most of the words that Jango had been meaning to teach for a while were more concepts than physical materials._ **_Parjai_ ** **.** _Victory._ **_Trikar_ ** _. Sadness. With every word, CC-2224 swallows them up like a hungry critter, absorbing each one and memorizing with each one. He and Jango had short conversations in full Mando’a, though it would take some time before he would be able to speak for hours with the language._

_Then, on one word in particular, CC-2224 stops fumbling with his water bottle, looking up at Jango with curious eyes._

_“_ **_Kote_ ** _?” he asks. “What does that mean?”_

 _“_ **_Kote_ ** _— means glory.” Jango smiles at the younger’s sudden interest in the newfound word. “Pretty word, isn’t it? One of my favorite words in the language.”_

 _“_ **_Kote_ ** _,” CC-2224 tries beneath his breath. “_ **_Kote…_ ** _”_

 _“Alright,_ **_ad’ika_ ** _.” Jango stands up from his seat to stretch out his arms, beckoning at him with a head nodding to the training mat at the center of the room. “Time to get back to training.”_

 _Jango goes to set up their small training session again, this time with the several blades that he had brought with him to their sparring matches and the dummies he was meant to use them on. Mandalorians, he said, were warriors. Weapons were their own religion, and as such, training with blades such as these would refine CC-2224’s skill in hand-to-hand combat a lot more, especially in dire situations. CC-2224 places his water bottle down on the floor next to the bench and rises from his seat. He tries the word on his tongue again._ **_Kote_ ** _._

_The next day, during their training session once more, with his batch all lined up in front of their main mentor, one of the first clone troopers Alpha-17, to the call-out of his designation, CC-2224 interrupts him._

_“_ **_Kote_ ** _.”_

_Alpha-17 pivots around to face him, raising an eyebrow at him in confusion. The rest of his batchmates do the same, turning to him as he had just swallowed an aiwha whole. Kote stands tall and straight when his teacher asks him what he meant._

_“_ **_Kote._ ** _My name is Kote.”_

 _He would never forget the smile that Jango had given him from his perch on the sidelines, full of so much tenacity and love that it made Kote’s cheeks burn with both embarrassment and pride. “_ **_Kote_ ** _, huh?” Alpha-17 repeats, a small glint of respect in his eyes. “It suits you.”_

_His little statement had inspired the others of his batch to find their names as well once they had finished their training session, with Jango and Alpha pitching in to give them suggestions and reject stupid ideas that some of them had made. By the end of the month, all of them had names. CC-3636 was Wolffe, CC-1010 was Fox, CC-5052 was Bly, and CC-6454 was Ponds. They began to call each other by their chosen names, and used them any chance they got. Kote, by the end of the month, was still Kote._

_This kind of thing spread throughout the cadets on Kamino. There had already been a few troops who had chosen their own name, but now the numbers were completely discarded and many clones had begun to form their own names in a rapid haste. Before, the clones were adamant of using their own designations as a means of communicating, but now that they had a chance to break free of the feelings of isolation and lack of identity with the use of a few syllables, they took the chance of carefully crafting their own name. Some chose them all on their own, others took suggestions. Some had been called it on accident and it just stuck, or someone had earned it after a certain feat. But by the time Kote had turned six, everyone he knew had a name. Grey, Thire, Thorn, Gree. Everyone had one._

_The Kaminoans didn’t really care. At first, they had been pretty miffed and annoyed with the new ordeal. When Kote had told them in defiance that his name was no longer CC-2224 but Kote, they only scoffed. “That’s not your name.”_

_“It is now,” he retorted. He could hear Ponds behind him, hiding his laughter from behind his arm._

_The Kaminoans took one look at him, and went on their way for overseeing testing. A few had mispronounced his name, and began to call him Cody._

  
  


_Kote didn’t like being called Cody._

_He’s glad that his batch called him Kote. They made sure to correct anyone who called him otherwise, and he was thankful that they took the time to say his name exactly the way he wanted to. He couldn’t blame the younger cadets and other troopers for calling him Cody. He knows that they don’t know the real point of calling him any name other than a simple and basic one, and that they don’t know his standing on how it should be. He just doesn’t like it. His name is Kote. Kote. Glory._

_He didn’t know why he was so frustrated at first when the Kaminoans had first called him Cody. Or why he was pissed that some of the other troops caught on. Kote was the name that he chose, the name that his_ **_buir_ ** _had given him. It was his name. Not Cody. Not ever._

_Over time, though, he stopped correcting other people in pronouncing his name. He knew it was never going to stop no matter how hard he tried. And the other trainees simply didn’t understand why he was so obsessed over how he pronounced his name. He became exasperated. So eventually he became a lot looser with things. He was glad at least that his own batch called him by his true name. It was enough for him that Alpha-17 and Jango did so as well._

_So when he sees a small crying cadet in the middle of a hallway after testing, when he sits beside him and comforts him with delicate hands, he introduces himself with a kind smile._

_“My name’s Kote,” he says to the blond. “But you can call me Cody if you want.”_

  
  


_In that decade of his life, he was probably at his happiest. He trained alongside his batchmates and rolled his eyes at their antics while also helping them with said antics, laughing alongside them as they did so. Watching Wolffe and Ponds duke it out on the training mats, teasing Fox and Bly. He hung out with Rex too, the blond he had comforted and befriended. He had a defect as seen with his light locks that he shaved to a fuzz, and the two of them became inseparable with the passing days. Eventually, Rex had risen through the ranks and basically became one of the squad despite his younger age. Kote’s life was perfect._

_Kote’s life was perfect with Jango as well. His_ **_buir_ ** _always made time for him. When he was around nine, he could speak full length conversations with him without even a word of Basic. He often babysat Boba for his_ **_buir_ ** _, began high intensity training with Alpha-17 that further refined Kote’s skill, and eventually he became one of the most effective clones in the entire GAR._

_( Wolffe’s voice booms off the walls when he makes a grand announcement whenever Kote enters a room, and he has the audacity to roll his eyes. )_

_He still sighs in exasperation when people call him Cody. It’s a minor inconvenience now. He almost forgets to correct them. He thinks he’s fine only with Rex calling him Cody. Everyone else was on thin ice. His name was Kote, even if no one else could see that._

  
  


_After the Battle of Geonosis, when they were burning the bodies of their dead on the funeral pyres outside the arena, he was the one to list out the names. “_ **_Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum_ ** _,” he spoke. It had taken all the composure he had left after the gruesome battle to keep standing tall, to not let the weight of a thousand stares with a thousand tears shatter him in his place. He read from the list with a tone of cold rock._

  1. _Mowgli. Quinn. Deadshot. Nineteen._



_Torrent. Dagger Eyes. Razor. Cut. Zelkro._

_Kessod. 22. Thand. Panther. Cannon._

_The names blended together, like a mixture of boiling blood and crystalline tears, turning his stomach bitter and aggrieved. On the last name he lists out, his voice breaks. Images of the violet lightsaber, cutting through between the shoulder and helmet of the man he saw as a father, his head cut off before he even had a chance to whisper his goodbyes. He looks at the beheaded body of his_ **_buir_ ** _, and feels his body shake in his sadness and rage._

_“Jango,” he whispers out._

_That night, on their way to Kamino before they would be deployed on Coruscant, where they would be staying for the rest of the war that they had been preparing for their entire lives, he sits with his brothers, huddled within the transport. They’re all desolate, empty. Wolffe is gripping the latch above his head with claws sharp enough to kill. Ponds is staring down at his feet, wiping furiously at his face. Bly and Fox are rendered silent as they look out the windows of the gunship to the oceans below. Rex is next to CC-2224, offering him a small hand on the back. He was never that close to Jango. CC-2224, on the other hand, lived and breathed next to Jango._

_The next day, when troops call on him for other matters, calling him by Kote, he corrects them. When he is assigned his Jedi General in the upcoming war, and the man he had seen some nights before stands before him ( not Jango’s killer, but he might as well have been ), he introduces himself._

_“My designation is CC-2224. Commander Cody, sir.”_

_He ignores the hurt he feels like a blazing knife into his heart when he mutters the name that feels impersonal, with the name for his person that never felt so fractured. He ignores the pleasant smile the Jedi gives him to his name, as if he had not just told the biggest lie he had even spoken. He ignores it. He’s not Kote._

_Because Jango was dead. The day Jango died, Kote died with him._

  
  


_He’s hearing voices again._

  
  


_They’re saying a name._

_The voices. They sound like him._

_But they’re not him._

_The voices are saying a name._

  
  


_It’s not his name though._

  
  


_Or maybe it was._

_He’s not so sure anymore._

  
  


_There’s a light above him._

_~~CC-2224~~ _ _reaches out._

 _ ~~Kote~~ _ _reaches out._

  
  


_Cody reaches out._

  
  


He wakes up.

“Cody?”

Cody shifts in the bed he finds himself in. His body feels numb. As if he’s been electrocuted to stillness, glued and pressed down by an invisible force. His eyes blink as they are blinded by the fluorescents of the ceiling above. Blue. _Kebiin_ . He knows that word. He knows someone taught him that word. He doesn’t know where he is though. He doesn’t recognize the _kebiin_ that wraps around his body and keeps him pinned down to the bed.

His head swims. The memories are pictures blurred in the past, flying past him before he can reach out and grasp them, unable to understand them to understand where he is. His body is like lead; it anchors him to the center of gravity. His mouth is dry. There are things in his arms that he doesn’t want to be in his arms and he doesn’t know why they’re a part of him now. His head throbs. His chest feels burst. He doesn’t know how he got here or why he’s here. It wasn’t the gray walls he had been accustomed to before he was pulled down under by the darkness, no, these ones were clean and polished. These walls were tidy with shelves and files located around, with beds and chairs and tables and he doesn’t understand.

Once he manages to take in the rays of the lights, he scans around the room. His arms are at his sides, unmoving and paralyzed, transparent tubes needled into his skin. The extra weight latched to his head is a bandage, wrapped around his temple, moist against his cool skin. He was cold. Cody doesn’t often feel cold.

He’s not wearing any clothes. Only a hospital gown. No armor. No blacks. Just a gown. He’s practically naked. Exposed.

He sees a man sitting at his bedside. Right, he’s on a bed. A medical bed. There’s a man who sits besides him on that bed. Rich brown skin, mouth pulled into a permanent scowl, wood brown eyes observing him with a familiarity to them. The man is familiar. There’s a scar on his chin that he remembers he had acquired after an accident with a vehicle a little ways after Geonosis. His face is rugged, yet he’s younger than him, something old yet youthful in his facade. He’s blonde. Blonde with his hair shaven down to soft fuzz, kempt since they were cadets, when Cody would pet that fuzz order to soothe the other’s temper or regret. Cody remembers him. 

“Cody?” the man asks him. “Cody, can you hear me?”

Cody angles his head, each crack of his neck creating seething agony, yet he remains steady. His body is heavy, aching. He lifts his head up to look at the younger. Cody remembers him. Rex. _Rex’ika_ . His _vod’ika_.

“R… R…”

His throat is scratchy and hoarse, unable to contort simple sounds into the words he dies to say. He tries to find his voice which has been ripped out from his gullet, yet he can’t. Rex frowns deeply at his trouble, his soft oaken eyes becoming more distraught as he leans closer to his _ori’vod_ , laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. The touch of fingertips against his bare skin makes him instinctively flinch. Rex’s hand is warm.

“It’s alright, _vod_ ,” Rex whispers to him. “Just take it easy. You’re okay, you’re okay.” 

He massages his aching shoulder, ripped of its pauldron and leather, easing the high tension in Cody’s muscles until the weight on his chest dissipates just enough for him to be able to speak coherently. “Where…?” he starts. “Where…?”

“You’re in the medbay,” Rex tells him. “Coruscant. You and Wooley were transported here. You just came out the bacta tank a few days ago.”

At the name Wooley, a flood of memories storm in Cody’s head. Wooley. _Wool’ika._ His baby brother. Being slammed against the pavement by a demon coated in blood, each of his bones fracturing with every hit against the steel floor. His unconscious body crumpling against the wall and slumped over, with a pulse so faint he was practically _dead_ . Wooley, his _vod’ika_ , his little brother he loved more than anything. Wooley. He wasn’t here.

Cody shoots up from the bed, nearly tearing his skin out with the needles embedded into him, eyes frantic as he searches the room. He’s hyperventilating, breaths cutting short too quick, paranoid as he searches for his baby brother. Is he here? Is he safe? Is he alright? Please, please, please—

“Cody!” Rex exclaims from his sudden action, reaching out a hand to prevent Cody from hurting himself even further. “It’s alright, _vod_. Breathe, breathe. Don’t push yourself.”

“Wooley,” Cody mumbles, the first name he’s able to say since he had awoken. “Where’s Wooley? Where is he?”

On his last words, his voice cracks. Rex falters for a second from the sight of Cody’s distress, before nodding over to the door leading outside of the medical bay. “He’s still in the tank. He’ll be out in a few days time, suffered a lot more injuries than you did. He’s safe.”

“Grievous,” Cody whispers then. When he speaks again, his voice is in a low growl, acid dripping with every word. “Grievous. Where is he? Where?”

“ _Vod_ —” Cody struggles in Rex’s hold.

“Where?” he croaks, his voice barely above a whisper as he bares his teeth in a snarl, ferocity coursing through him. He knows he looks crazy. He probably is. The memories have begun flooding in alongside the ones of Wooley. The satellite station docked over the Tiika Moon. The explosions that rocked the station and took out all the escape pods, the starfighter taking their place. Dozens upon dozens of troopers, his troopers, dead on the ground in piles of white and tangerine mixed with crimson. The lightsabers, _kebiin_ and _vorpan_ , cutting down each one of them until only Cody is the only one left standing. He remembers the names of the last few. Maple, Mark, Nikita, Sprint, 89, Watcher, Willow. And he remembers Iuya.

Iuya. Stars, _please don’t let her be gone too. Please don’t be real. Where’s Iuya? Where is she? Where did she go?_

**_Where was Grievous?_ **

“He’s not here, _vod_ ,” his brother promises him. “He’s not here. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

That’s not the issue. Cody wants to hurt _him_.

But under Rex’s steady gaze, he eventually relaxes, his fingers that were clenched into fists releasing and his nails leaving indents in his palms. He realizes that both his hands were now functioning, the one that had been fractured by a silver claw now responding to his brain. The bacta tank must have fixed him up, despite how groggy and weak he feels. A feeling he hates. So, so much. Nevertheless, Rex sighs in relief when Cody manages to calm down. The commander allows his _vod_ to push him back down on the bed, his firm hand strong but gentle. 

He hears the familiar slide of the door, and in walks another of the 501st, his hair shaven with beautiful designs of electric volts starting from his temples. There is a tattoo above his ear, something in Aurebesh, but Cody is unable to read it due to his angle and the dizziness grasping at him from his sudden awakening. The man was holding a datapad, tapping away at it when he sees Cody. He perks up. “He’s awake now?”

Rex nods. “He’s a little shaken up though.” His brows are knit with concern as he looks down at his _ori’vod_ , who is still darting glances around the room. The medic — Kix, Cody remembers — walks over to the other side of the bed, leaning over him to inspect him with a soft facade.

“Hey, Commander,” he greets him. “You feeling alright? Not bothering you or anything?”

Cody grunts as he attempts to lift up his heavy arms, weighed down by an unseen force. The tubes embedded into them are a little uncomfortable, but other than that and the grogginess settled in his bones, he feels relatively fine. As fine as he could feel anyway. “Where’s Wooley?” he asks Kix. 

“He’s in the other room, still healing.” Kix's expression turns stern, as if already guessing what Cody wants to do. “You are in no condition to move though. The bacta tank mended your bones and everything, but we need to make sure nothing else is wrong. It’ll be a day or more until you’ll be able to walk around.”

“ _Vod_ , do you remember?” Rex asks him carefully. “What happened up there?”

Cody wracks his brain, and the memories stabilize. “We were… we were doing construction on the satellite. The one over Tiika. Worked on it for a couple of days, finished it up quick. Supposed to be in operation next morning. That was when he attacked us.”

“Grievous,” Kix mumbles in clarification. The name sends violent shudders down Cody’s spine. “You didn’t send a signal to the outpost below? Or try to escape?”

Cody shook his head. “Took out escape pods. Satellite was broken. Went to go fix it. Barely escaped.”

Rex’s scowl had become darker. “Why did he attack the satellite? It’s out of range of other Separatist headquarters.”

“Don’t know. He just… attacked. Separatists wanted to control the signals in and out of the moon, I think. Mess with our communications.” Cody’s breath hitches, a lump forming in his throat as the images rewind themselves over and over again in his head, subjecting him to the screams that pound in his ears and rattle his head. He can still see the slashes across the walls, the spots dancing around his vision from the blaze of the sabers that Grievous had wielded, restless slaughter before his eyes, leaving him the last one standing among the grave. “There… there were so many bodies. Killed my whole group. Slammed Wooley ‘gainst the ground until he was a bloody mess. It was…”

Suddenly he freezes, sitting up from his bed despite Rex’s protests. When he speaks, his voice is broken and desperate. “Please. Please tell me the others made it out. Tell me someone else survived, please.”

Kix is unmoving for a few moments. He shares a glance with Rex, before placing a gloved hand atop his shoulder. His eyes flash with pain and regret, and it sinks the narrow sliver of hope that had filled Cody’s stomach.

“I’m sorry,” the medic tells him. “No one else made it out.”

Cody takes a moment to register the words. Then he lays back down on the bed. He feels empty and cold, shivering in a ruthless winter that he could never escape from. When he had asked how, Kix had further explained it: many of the victims had been killed instantly, while others died bleeding out from fatal injuries. When he finishes explaining, Cody is still shaken with disbelief. He couldn’t even cry, the only thing he feels being a void in his chest were his _vode_ used to be.

There had been around fifty troopers stationed on that satellite, including the shinies and Windu’s Padawan. Only two survived.

“Hey,” Rex whispers. “It’s okay, _vod_. I’m right here. You’re going to be alright.”

Cody wishes he were right. Hopes, if he can be so bold.

Kix runs some tests on him, affirming he would not have another crazed fit. He notes that Cody was physically recovering at a normal rate, though he would be unable to do any activities for a while, and it was decided that he would not return to the field for a week or more once he’s discharged to prevent any breakdowns. Cody had been under a significant amount of stress ( _stress_ , Cody could almost laugh at the word ) during the events, and the psychological distress had taken a great deal on his mental health. As such, Kix made sure that he would have a good support structure to aid him by making sure that at least one other person was by his side at all times, though Cody doesn’t really understand the point of it. 

When he’s finished, he excuses himself to go check on Wooley. Cody nearly bolts out the door to follow him, desperate to see his little brother, but he knows that Kix could rival him when it came to stubbornness and it would be stupid to follow. He gruffly remains in bed, and watches Kix’s form retreat behind the doors. He glances over to Rex sitting by his bedside. He notices there are dark bags beneath his eyes, as if he had not gotten enough sleep for many nights — and judging by his character, it was most likely true.

“How long was I out?” he asks the blond. Rex snaps from his daze, and his features soften.

“About a week. Me and Wolffe took shifts watching over you while you were sleeping. Boil and Waxer too. Stayed here overnight actually.”

“Really?” Cody asks. “Then where…?”

He looks over Rex’s shoulder to find Boil and Waxer asleep on a nearby couch. They are a tangle of messy limbs, with Boil snoring loudly while Waxer quietly dozed off against his brother’s shoulder. Cody could see the drool escaping Boil’s mouth and dripping down his beard. The sight was so adorable that it lightened Cody’s mood considerably. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Rex chuckles softly, amusement in his tone. “When the news came up of what happened, they dashed over here as fast as they could. Barely left your side since.”

“What about you?” Cody asks him. “Weren’t you going on a mission with General Skywalker down at the Rishi Maze?”

“Oh, right.” Rex sheepishly looks away. “I, uh, requested to stay on Coruscant. Told him you needed someone familiar to take care of you while you were recovering. He let me stay.”

Cody stares at him, feeling his heart pulsate within him. He tries to speak, to whisper is gratitude or show him verbal affection, maybe even tease him for missing him that much. But his throat closes up tight, his chest pierced with both warmth and sadness. He hates just how choked up he gets when Rex tells him that, like he’s worth all the trouble to get back to. Luckily, Rex doesn’t comment when seeing Cody’s lack of ability to put his thoughts into words. His _vod’ika_ reaches forward, and interlaces their fingers together. Even with the glove wrapped around Rex’s fingertips, it still brings him that familiar warmth.

“I’m going to go comm Wolffe to tell him you’re awake,” Rex tells him, squeezing his hand. “He’s down at the mess hall, picking up some breakfast. I’ll ask him to get you some food as well.”

Cody nods, giving him a look of gratitude. “Thanks.” He eases into the comfort of the pillow tucked under his head as Rex taps a message to Wolffe on his gauntlet. While he does so, Cody’s eyes go wide when he catches something resting atop the table by his bedside. It gleams in the lights of the medical bay, golden and ebony sheets with intricate carvings within the metal. Cody lifts up his torso to look at it properly, wondering if he really had cracked. “When… when did that get there?” he stammers.

Rex stops tapping on his gauntlet to look at the object. “The lightsaber?” he clarifies. Cody nods. “General Windu said he found it on you when you were rescued. Left it here for you for when you woke up. No one’s touched it since.” He glances back at Cody, frowning at him with concern. “Whose lightsaber is it? What were you doing with it?”

Cody meets his gaze. He doesn’t say anything. Only: “I’ll tell you later.”

Rex doesn’t seem convinced, but otherwise doesn’t push the subject. He finishes up his message to Wolffe just as Waxer and Boil have begun to rustle from their slumber. They jolt upright after yawning in unison to the sight of their commander now awake, eyes gauging wide. “Commander!” Cody feels himself melt, a small smile of amusement playing on his features at the sight of them. His first smile.

“Had a nice nap?” Cody asks. Rex regards them with an unimpressed glare.

  
  


A few days since Cody had woken up, Obi-Wan had visited him. 

Kix and the other medics made sure that he wouldn’t be too overwhelmed by visitors, so for the first few days of his bed-ridden recovery, they only permitted Wolffe and Rex to visit him, along with Waxer and Boil whenever they were available. His scouts of the 212th and the commander of the 104th had other pressing matters to tend to frequently, and they visited him once they had the opportunity. Rex, by contrast, was by his side nearly every second. Cody appreciates his overbearing concern, albeit how the dark circles beneath his _vod’ika_ terrify him sometimes. He has to verbally berate him to get some sleep, though he doubts that Rex would listen to his complaints. He did oblige a few times, thank the stars, but it didn’t really aid the grogginess in his features whenever he visited.

When Cody had become more attuned to his surroundings and safety, he began to take in more visitors. There were surprisingly a ton of them. He’s been visited by Master Plo when Wolffe had invited him, and the kind-hearted Kel Dor Jedi offered him much solace in these hard times. He’s had Ahsoka Tano and Barriss Offee visit him to keep him company when Rex was away, Tano telling him stories to keep him occupied while Offee sat by his bedside, using the Force as a way to mend his ache. He’s been visited by his other batchmates, a couple of shinies, and many others. It’s because of all of them that he felt that he was making some actual progress.

In the noontime, with troopers and medical droids walking to and fro down the hallway with muffled chatter, Cody was laying in his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He refused to look at Iuya’s lightsaber, mocking him from the table by his head, gleaming so beautifully it drew curious eyes to it. Cody didn’t want to look at the hilt, remember the cool handle that fit itself at the center of his palm. He didn’t want to think about what happened at all — but the memories are still fresh and vivid in his mind, and he wishes someone would provide him a sense of stability in this state. Unfortunately for today, Rex had been called over by Skywalker when his mission was over for a briefing, Wolffe was out doing whatever, and Waxer and Boil were most likely out on guard duty on the base. 

Then the door to the medbay opens, and in walks a familiar Jedi with dark auburn hair and a beard less kempt than usual, his crystalline blue eyes locking onto his commander hidden beneath the sheets. “Commander.”

Cody wouldn’t admit that he was honestly surprised to see Kenobi here. It sounded pretty rude, he knows. He deems that Jedi are very benevolent, at least in his recollection of them, and many of them cared for their own men. But seeing General Kenobi here to visit him? He had expected his general to be busy with other matters, not take a seat by his bedside with eyes full of concern that could very-well mirror Rex’s own when he had awakened. Not worry himself with his commander when he had a battalion to run, especially when said commander was already recovering, albeit gradually.

“General,” Cody nods at him, confusion dripping in his tone as he sits up in his bed to face him. When General Kenobi pulls out the empty chair on the side of the room, he seats himself down with a flourish.

“How are you doing?” Kenobi asks, keeping his voice kind and steady. “I can’t imagine that this process is easy for you. Few soldiers rarely survive an encounter with Grievous.”

Cody shrugs. He doesn’t like how the general phrases his words like that, as if he’s some special case of a clone. Like he’s the one exception when it came to his _vode_ . He knows that the general doesn’t mean it like that, he’s _not_ like that, but Cody isn’t sure of anything anymore. “I’m doing alright.”

“Ah, that’s good” General Kenobi hums. What follows is a long period of awkward silence, neither of them knowing what to say to the other. It is only after a few moments of pondering from his general’s end that it is broken. “I’ve been checking on Wooley’s progress. He’s being decanted in a few days, most likely the day of the ceremony.”

“Ceremony?” Cody asks him.

Kenobi nods slowly. “Yes. We decided to host a funeral in order to commemorate the men who fell during the attack. We’ve been putting it off until you were awake.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“I thought Rex would, but apparently not,” Kenobi sighs. Cody notices the same darkness Rex possessed beneath the rims of his eyes, also like he had not gotten any rest for a couple of days, much more prominent than the last time Cody had seen him. Cody could almost jump out of bed and smack him to return to his quarters, though he’d probably seem ungrateful. Just because he had gotten all the sleep he needed doesn’t mean everyone else should have the opposite fate. 

“What about Wooley?” Cody asks him, knitting his eyebrows together. “He won’t be awake for it?”

“I’m sorry Cody, but because of his own injuries, he won’t be able to wake up even after he’s decanted. He’s suffered from a lot more internal complications than you did. Grievous, he…” Kenobi pauses, and Cody can see his fists clench together til his veins were popping. There’s anger, he realizes, though at Grievous directly or for his own men, he has no idea. “Anyway, Rex and I figured that you would want to attend, which is why we postponed it for so long. Would you like to lead the ceremony? You’re not obligated to but—”

“No, it’s fine,” Cody interrupts. He curls up into himself. “Yeah, I’ll go when I’m out of my bed.”

“Oh, good.” Obi-Wan falls quiet once more. “You know, holding your own against Grievous… and surviving… that’s not a mere feat.”

Cody doesn’t answer for a while. He’s pretty sure he would say something along the lines of, _I also got my entire brethren killed and survived out of sheer luck_ , which would no doubt ruin Kenobi’s image of him. All he does his shrug off-handedly, the burning feeling in his stomach growing considerably. “I did what I could.”

“You certainly did,” General Kenobi says, and the bitter feeling increases. “I would promote you if you weren’t already of the highest rank.”

At that, Cody chuckles. It isn’t the first laugh he’s had since he had come out of his stasis, but he’ll never forget how Kenobi’s eyes grow to the size of saucers when he does so. “I’d appreciate it, sir, but I already have enough paperwork on my hands.”

“I’m sure you do,” Kenobi says, giving him a sad smile. “Also, you should know that you’re being relieved of duty until you are fit to go out on the field again. I’m placing Waxer in your position for the meantime.”

“Thank stars,” Cody sighs. “Wouldn’t trust anyone else in the position, except maybe Boil.”

“Are you sure? I think Longshot would be a great candidate as well.”

Cody levels a glare at him, and he knows that he’s recovered enough to get back the death stare he was so renowned for, as General Kenobi laughs endearingly at him. He’s the only person Cody knows besides Wolffe who never took his threatening glares seriously. 

His glare fades away after some time, his gaze drifting back to the dark _kebiin_ ceiling above, bland and hollow and no different from those steel walls that had wrapped around him like a cocoon back over Tiika. He doesn’t really know where the words come from when he speaks them barely above a whisper, but he guesses that he’s not too stressed over it. “Thank you. For visiting me, General.”

Kenobi blinks as he registers his words of gratitude, before nodding with courtesy. “Of course, Commander.”

He stays by his bedside for a while, telling him all of what had happened with the 212th while Cody had been deployed over the satellite. Kenobi had been on a mission with Secura and Mundi a little ways off from Tiika, and had left his battalion under the care of Master Plo while he was absent. It was then when he had gotten a call from Master Windu saying that there was an attack on the Tiika Moon Satellite, and he had rushed back to help with the survivors and the dead. Grievous, unfortunately, had escaped out his starfighter before General Windu had a chance to catch him. They had brought them to the fleet for emergency medical attention, then made their way back to Coruscant as all of their matters had been accomplished.

“Ah, that reminds me,” General Kenobi adds once he mentions the Jedi Master in his story. “General Windu said he wanted to see you before the ceremony. He’s busy right now, tending to his own men, but you can find him when the time comes.”

That’s… weird. “How is he?” Cody asks him, though he doesn’t know why he’s asking.

“For the most part, good,” Kenobi answers, but there’s a deep frown on his facade. “But I’m worried about him. In the attack, he had lost his own Padawan. I’ve never personally met her, but apparently he and her had grown close to one another. I can’t imagine how hard it is to have a bond broken like that.”

Cody’s fists tighten in the sheets, his heart wrenching so tight in his chest that he can barely breathe. It’s as if the saber that had cut through Iuya’s back had pierced through his own, the burning agony climaxing until all he remembers is the golden and black saber by his bedside. General Kenobi, unfortunately, notices this, his eyes observing Cody’s distraught expression before his sky blues widen in realization.

“You knew her,” he says. “Didn’t you?” 

Cody feels guilty of his silence, or how when he speaks again, his words are dripping with hostility. “General, I’m feeling pretty tired. I think I’m going to get some rest. If you don’t mind.”

He can see the hurt flash across his general’s face, increasing the pit of guilt in his gut, but Obi-Wan doesn’t retort back at him. He nods understandingly, and offers him a smile in farewell. “Of course, Commander. May you make a steady recovery.”

General Kenobi stands from his seat and exits the medbay, and Cody watches him go. When his form disappears behind the gray sliding doors, Cody lets out a sigh and lies back down, staring up at the ceiling once more. His gaze drifts back to the lightsaber by his bedside, still untouched and begging to be held in the grip of an owner. He refrains from the urge to chuck it out of the nearest window. Not because he doesn’t respect its former owner, but because if he looks at it for too long he feels like he’s dying all over again. He’ll find Windu later, ask him what sort of sick humor he finds in letting him keep this thing.

For now though, he’ll wallow here. Maybe try to get the rest he had promised General Kenobi he would get.

He ignores the loneliness, and shuts his eyes.

  
  


The first thing he does when he’s back on his feet is find Mace Windu.

It’s the day of the funeral scheduled later that day, and he was directed by Ponds when he had asked where the general was. Ponds was one of the many visitors he had received before being discharged from the medbay, as he had been by Windu’s side when they had found him alone on the satellite, his _vod’ika_ often giving him company when the others were unavailable. When he points in the direction where the Jedi Master was located, he gives Cody a concerned glance. “You’re doing better now?”

Cody had answered that question so many times his response comes naturally. “Yeah. Thanks, _vod’ika_.”

Ponds nods, giving him a small smile. It still had that lopsided-ness to it, out of his control even with the slightest tilt of his lips. “Alright, stay safe. And don’t forget, we have a sabacc game with the batch tomorrow. You better be down there for when we pick you!”

“I got it, I got it!” Cody shouts back at him as he heads down the hall to where Windu is.

He guesses he’s doing a lot better now. He had a little trouble walking when he first stood from his bed a day after General Kenobi had visited him, but by the time of his discharge from the medical facility, he was able to walk to and fro down the base on Coruscant. He’s grown more into his element, able to speak and laugh at and roll his eyes at the clones who approached him whenever he took a walk around, either joking with him as a means of taking his mind off things or whisper their condolences with sympathetic eyes. He’s not yet allowed off the base for another week, so he’ll have to spend his days basking in his quarters and taking some medication to aid with any headaches.

( He guesses those headaches are from the concussion he had received from being slammed into durasteel at least thrice. His scar doesn’t feel the same across his face. )

When he finds General Windu, his hands folded behind his back and gazing out the long stretch of window that winds through the west side of the hallway, he feels his hands become clammy. He doesn’t really know what to say as he nears the _Jetii_ , taking his own place by the window, watching the highways of Coruscant stream with the traffic of gleaming vehicles under the rays of the setting sun, masking the world in a gorgeous landscape of peach and berry. The clouds drift over the heavens, above the shining buildings of Coruscant that appear as crystals in the setting sky. In only a few more minutes, the ceremony would begin, and Cody focuses on the beauty of the world beyond to forget the Jedi by his side and his brethren about to be burned.

He takes a glance at General Windu, who still stares out at the scenery with a peaceful gaze. He hesitates, before bringing up his fist and coughing awkwardly into it. The action causes Windu to turn an eye to him, almost as if he knew he were there and had waited for him to make the first move.

“Commander Cody,” he greets with a nod. “You were looking for me?”

Cody nods. “Yes, General. The funeral’s going to begin in a few minutes. I just wanted to let you know.”

“Thank you, Commander,” Windu says. He pauses for a few moments, leaving them in a few moments of awkward silence, before opening his mouth again. “Forgive me, I have a feeling you have already answered this before. But I wanted to know how you are dealing with everything that has happened.”

Cody guesses he appreciates Windu’s self-awareness. He shrugs off-handedly, attempting to keep his expression level. “It’s a lot to take in but I’ll be alright. Wooley’s been decanted, so I’m visiting him later tonight.”

“He is the other survivor, correct?” Cody nods, and Windu hums. “I feel as if this is the right moment to apologize. The signal had been sent while we were dealing with a sudden droid attack down below. We think that they may have been a part of Grievous’ plan, to distract us from responding back. Still, we should have arrived sooner. Before…”

He drifts off, and Cody nods in understanding. He’s heard from the 91st that they had dealt with a surprise infiltration at the same time Grievous had struck the satellite, and they needed to clear it up before they had a chance to check the distress signal. They had arrived as quickly as they could — only for Cody, quickly as they could was too late for him. If they hadn’t been dealing with that attack, maybe more would have survived. They would have driven Grievous out, and the rest of his _vode_ would have been alive. But of course nothing could come easy. Nikita, Willow, Sprint, Watcher and 89 were gone. Leaving Cody and Wooley, the latter of which was still comatose from his injuries.

He doesn’t want to think of the bitterness that sets in him. The bitterness that Windu’s best wasn’t enough, that his tardiness had caused him lives. Instead, he accepts Windu’s apology. “It’s alright, General. You did your best.”

When General Windu regards him with a look, it is as if a thousand suns shine their damaging rays on him, frying him down to the skeleton beneath. They’re piercing, reading every feature in his expression, picking him apart with a single gaze. He feels scrutinized by it, exposed right out in the open. “I sense… unease in you, Commander.”

The way he phrases it makes Cody flush crimson, his entire body burning under Windu’s statement. _What made him think that he could talk to him like that? Like he could just make accusations, clearly make him uncomfortable? Windu knows that he’s grieving the deaths of dozens of his brothers, so why rub it in his face like that?_ Cody retreats back into himself from the discomfort, crossing his arms as he exhales heatedly. “I’m alright, sir. Just thinking.”

He suddenly remembers the other matter that he had approached Windu for. “Oh, right, I needed to give you this.” Windu raises an eyebrow at him when he reaches down to his belt, the gleaming intricate saber that had been by his bedside for days hanging from its clip. He unlatches it from his hip and offers it to Windu. “This was Iuya’s. She said she wanted me to have it, but I think it’ll be safer in your hands.”

Windu takes the lightsaber with delicate hands, thumbing over the carvings of his golden finish as he inspects the metal. For a few moments, the hallway is drenched in silence as Windu looks over the lightsaber. Being the Master Jedi he was, his face was unreadable. He often appeared emotionless and dry, so stoic and grim that it was hard to tell if he ever broke that facade. So when Cody sees a flash of something akin to sorrow in his deep oak irises, he’s caught off guard. 

“Did you know her?” Windu asks him finally, not taking his gaze off the lightsaber in his hands. Cody takes a few moments to register the question before Windu tears his eyes from the hilt, looking at the commander expectedly.

“Yes,” he answers. “We met when she had been sent up to the satellite to aid with repairs. Helped us with construction and everything. She…” he pauses, unknowing if he should reveal more to the man, but decides to risk it anyway before continuing. “She was amazing. All the troops loved her. Kind, sweet, really determined. She got distracted a lot though. She had this big smile on her face when she saw the satellite for the first time.”

Windu’s face breaks into a chuckle, shocking Cody into speechlessness. “I can already imagine it. You two became close with one another?”

“Yeah,” Cody responds once he gets over his initial surprise at General Windu’s laughter. “She followed me around a lot, kept me company after a long day. It’s like… it’s like whenever she spoke, it just fills you with something, you know?”

“I remember,” Windu tells him with a small smile, nostalgic. “You know, I always said to her that she had a smile that lit up the entire room, no matter the circumstance.”

Cody grins, envisioning the youngling with her pearly white teeth, gap between the front top row of her teeth, her eyes crinkling as she laughed with innocence and exuberance. “Oh, definitely.” He scans Windu’s face, and sees that though the Master did not drop his stoic facade in front of him, he can see something behind his eyes, almost longing and hurt as they once again settled on the lightsaber in the palms of his hands. He suddenly remembers General Kenobi’s words to him as he does so.

_“In the attack, he had lost his own Padawan. I’ve never personally met her, but apparently he and her had grown close to one another. I can’t imagine how hard it is to have a bond broken like that.”_

“Were you…?” Cody begins, cutting off momentarily when Windu levels a gaze on him. “Were you close to her too?”

The _Jetii_ ponders over his words carefully, thumbing over the carvings of the lightsaber as a means of grounding himself, something that Cody had done when he had taken up the weapon down in that chute during the attack. “The day I had first met her, she was a youngling. She was so shy that she hid behind one of the chairs in the Jedi Temple to escape my gaze, barely spoke when I addressed her. However, she eventually warmed up to me. Pretty quickly, if I may add. Whenever she spoke, there was something about her. Something innocent and pure. She brought a smile to my face whenever she was around.”

“How long did you know her for?” Cody asks him.

“I had only inducted her as my Padawan a few weeks ago, but I had known her since she had been taken into the Order.” He pauses, looking out to the streets of Coruscant outside, almost wistfully. “When she died, I felt it immediately. Our bond shattered once she left. But I had been too occupied with the droids. I couldn’t let my own men die. If I had left a little sooner, I could have saved her. I could have saved you and the others. But the Force had other plans.”

Cody stares at him for a while, watching the lack of emotions across his face yet hearing the flurry of them in his words. For a while there is only quiet, and Cody doesn’t know how to respond. He feels the turmoil within him. The many thoughts and emotions spin around in his head. He doesn’t know how to take in the heartfelt words Windu has given him, he doesn’t even know the right way to feel about it. There’s the grief, of course, of Iuya’s death that is still fresh in his mind. But at the same time there is anger, and he does not know who it directs to.

He’s angry at Windu. He’s angry at him for sending Iuya and the rookies up there, to have them be at the face of the disaster that would wipe them out a mere week later. For having a choice ( albeit an unfair one ) to stay and aid his own men while Cody’s were being slaughtered left and right, by arriving late and leaving only two survivors to face off against Grievous’ attack. He’s angry, because Windu has moved on, that as a Jedi he’ll just find another Padawan and raise her like he would have Iuya, that he shows no emotion _when he should be like Cody, broken and beaten as he cradles Iuya in his arms, begging and screaming for her to come back_.

He’s angry at himself. He’s angry for blaming Windu for Iuya’s death where he was as in little control as he was, unable to change the course of events no matter how much he wanted to. Cody blames himself for scattering his men, for sitting idly while his brethren died, for letting Iuya come with him on his mission. For not protecting her when he had the chance, hell, not protecting anyone when he had the chance. He was a coward, too terrified to use Iuya’s saber when she had gifted it to him as a means of saving the others. Rising at the last moment when he was at his literal worst, clinging to consciousness, too weak to even lay a scratch on the monster.

He’s angry. At everyone. At Windu, at himself… at Grievous. _General Grievous._

“I can understand if you blame me.” He’s brought from his inner turmoil by Windu’s voice, the _Jetii_ regarding him with his usual metallic gaze now one of stone. “I would not hold it against you if you did.”

“No, sir, I just…” Cody feels the guilt creep at him. He’s full of heartbreak. “I’m so sorry.”

Windu exhales through his nose like he’s influxed with a sudden spike of pain. He closes some of the distance between him and the commander, laying a hand on his shoulder guard. Cody instinctively freezes beneath his touch, but soon his muscles lose their tension. “It’s alright, Commander. Maybe, together, we can heal from this experience.”

Cody blinks at him, processing his words before nodding, hesitantly. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

They look out into the streets of Coruscant, the sun disappearing beneath the horizons, streams of light that filter through narrow cracks in the forestry of skyscrapers beginning to fade out to make way for the deep indigo of night. It’s beautiful. The way the light cascades over them like tapestries, dousing Cody’s skin in the amber light. The way the sun shines… it reminds him of her. Of her rose pink skin, her striped tattoos that cascade down her lekku, her bright golden eyes that twinkle like crystals. Of her laughter that echoes off empty halls and the feeling of her small hand intertwined with his own. Cody misses her. He misses her so much.

He’s so enveloped in the beauty of the world beyond that he nearly misses the feeling of cool steel against his palm. He looks down and finds that Windu had placed Iuya’s lightsaber in his abandoned hand, snuck between his unclutched fingertips when he hadn’t been looking. He gives Windu a frown. “General…”

The _Jetii_ gives him only a knowing glance. “You said Iuya wanted you to have it. It would only be fit to suit her wishes.”

“Yes, but she’s your Padawan,” Cody stresses. “What am I even—?”

Windu interrupts him by holding his hand out in a _halt_ motion. “Something tells me that you’re going to need it. I trust that you will keep it safe, Cody. To honor her memory.”

Cody searches for any excuse to tell him, but he’s certain that nothing he could say would convince Windu otherwise. When that man made a decision, he made it with so much certainty that you could not move him from it even if assisted by the harshest boulders. Cody glances back down at the lightsaber, remembering his promise to Iuya. Cody doesn’t break promises. He’s been raised that way, never faltering from a promise no matter how dire. And he wants to honor Iuya’s words. So, silently, he clips it back onto his belt, feeling it click into place and situate itself against his hip. What the hell was he going to do with it though?

Mace Windu had the same idea, checking the time on a nearby clock. He places another hand on Cody’s shoulder pad. “Come along, Commander. The ceremony is about to begin.”

The area is packed with clones of the 212th and several other battalions who were available to attend, the 104th and 91st taking up the brunt of the others. Skywalker’s battalion was on another assignment currently, but luckily Cody finds Captain Rex within the crowd, speaking with Wolffe and the other commanders currently stationed on Coruscant. He gravitates toward them while General Windu walks over to where Generals Plo and Kenobi are, the Master offering them a small greeting. The troopers present for the funeral all give Commander Cody a nod of condolences as he passes, whispering their regrets. Somehow, the words both soothe his pain yet agonize it further. When he reaches Rex’s side, his _vod’ika_ scoots a little closer to him, bumping their wrists together. It fills Cody with momentary warmth.

The ceremony begins, and Cody comes forward to stand at the platform. All around he can see the numerous bodies of his brothers, sisters, and brethren, organized neatly in funeral pyres atop the platform. All delicately wrapped within the thick branches beneath their bodies. The pyre in the center and in front of him, however, was much smaller than the rest and hosted only one occupant. He gets choked up at the sight. He didn’t expect her to be here too — he had thought that she would have been cremated in the crypt within the Jedi Temple.

He looks over his shoulder to find Master Windu, close to where he stood, no emotion on his visage other than eyes that flickered with fleeting sorrow. For a few moments, Cody doesn’t know what to do.

“Ready when you are, Commander,” Rex tells him, snapping him back before he drifts too far into thought. Cody nods, facing the crowd as a thousand stares pierce into him. When he speaks, his voice doesn’t waver, the words in Mando’a coming so easy to him they are a part of himself now.

 _“Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum,_ ” he speaks out. He begins to read off the list.

Vexer. Mallus. Pygmy. Percival. Mark.

Maple. Frey. Terry. Little. Qi’ton. 

  1. Watcher. Sprint. Nikita. Willow.



On the last name he lists out, his voice breaks. Images of the cerulean lightsaber, cutting through the spine of the girl he protected with all he could, life snuffed out before he even had a chance to whisper his goodbyes. He looks at the motionless body of his _ad’ika_ , and feels his body shake in his sadness and rage.

“Iuya Mabeti,” he whispers out.

After the cremation, when he enters his quarters for the first time in weeks, he flings himself onto his bed. He begins to cry.

  
  


Later in the night, when he visits Wooley in the medical bay after he is decanted from the bacta tank, that’s when it clicks.

He finds him still comatose, white sheets pulled over his body, tubes full of nutrients pumping through his bloodstream from their placements in his wrists. He looks almost peaceful, eyes fluttered shut and mouth pulled into a thin line. His dark brown hair is organized into neat curls, falling over his forehead in dark waves; the inked tattoo across his left temple has not yet faded, though there are small cuts alongside his face that jag horridly against the design. Cody sits himself in a chair by his bedside, staring down at his _vod’ika_ , lost in a realm he hoped to the stars he would come out from.

Kix had told him that he was in a much more stable condition now. Said he would make it, that he’s stronger than he looks. And Cody knows that better than anybody. But he can’t stop the little voice in his head, whispering to him. Saying that nothing will be the same once he wakes up. Nothing will be the same after this.

And Cody knows it’s right. He knows with definition that nothing will be the same after that attack.

Hesitating, he reaches forward to take Wooley’s hand in his own, feeling the younger’s bare touch beneath the leather of his glove. They’re cold. So cold. Cody intertwines their fingers together, giving him a gentle squeeze but receiving no reaction in return. It hurts, to see his _vod’ika_ like this, stripped of his pride and armor and all alone on a hospital bed, date unknown when he would awake. It hurts Cody deeper than any sort of pain that could be inflicted on him. He wonders how Wooley would be like, when he wakes up. Would he be the same as he was? Would he be as traumatized as Cody had been, panicked and terrified, gritting out Grievous’ name like acid? He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t think he wants to know.

Cody brings his hand up and presses his forehead against Wooley’s knuckles, offering him any warmth he could. He wishes he could talk to him. He wishes he could save him from this burden.

Then he catches a glimpse of Iuya’s lightsaber strapped to his belt. He releases his hold on Wooley's hand, unlatching the hilt from his waist to gaze at it. He can see his reflection within the metal, his abstract form revealing the circles beneath his darkened eyes and his deadly scowl. If he looks deep into the steel in his palm, he can envision as well the putrid yellow eyes of a mechanized Kaleesh, hollow and sinister as they stare right back at him. His laughter echoes all around, cackling and mechanical, devoid of all humanity. It is then when it all clicks into place.

_But there was something different when he had held that lightsaber in his hand. Something that gave him a thrill, when he was deflecting fire and slicing off heads, in the heat of the battle. The handle of the saber was lightweight and filled him with a sort of emotion that no other weapon could be able to offer him. Though the blade was not one to be considered his (and it had felt like that, as if the saber let itself be used only under Cody’s silent oath that it would be returned to its true master) it felt almost right to hold it._

_“Something tells me that you’re going to need it. I trust that you will keep it safe, Cody. To honor her memory.”_

_“I want you to have it… so… so you can protect them.”_

Cody knows what he needs to do.

He gives Wooley a little squeeze on the hand, the soft features of his _vod’ika_ ever present and unmoving. “I’ll be back, _vod’ika_ ,” he promises him, though he knows he cannot hear him. “I’ll be back for you, just you wait.”

He clips Iuya’s lightsaber — _his_ lightsaber — back to his belt and stands from his chair. He leaves the medbay with a final glance to the unconscious Wooley, before making his way down the corridor, already mapping down the plan in his head. Yes, he knew what he had to do now. Iuya gave him this blade for a reason. And he knows exactly what he needs to do with it.

So he makes his way back to his quarters, and contemplates how to gain access to the Jedi Temple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translations:
> 
> buir: parent  
> beskar'gam: mandalorian iron, armor  
> parjai: victory  
> trikar: sadness  
> kote: glory  
> "ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum": i'm still alive, but you are dead. i remember you, so you are eternal.


	7. olden pages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Master Nu doesn’t seem very perturbed by his strange request though, a curious twinkle in her eye revealing itself in her honey-dark irises. “Ah, you have an interest in the art of lightsaber handling?”
> 
> “Uh, yeah.” ( Great job, Cody. )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, writing this chapter: if filoni won't make me cry then i sure as hell fucking will.
> 
> listen... this is a fix-it fic for a reason... which means i will save every character i love... hopefully. this chapter is pretty chill compared to the fucking next one, which is something you will recognize, i'm sure. if you're kinda confused, this chapter takes place the day after the funeral. also i miss wolffe.
> 
> mando'a translations at the bottom, as always!

Something Cody realizes when he sets his plan into motion: it’s fairly easy to gain access to the Jedi Temple.

He had thought, during his first days on the front, that he was only permitted within Temple grounds whenever there was an emergency, or when he was called over by General Kenobi or other Jedi when it came to the role of Marshal Commander, leading at least a third of the GAR alongside the Jedi. Turns out, he was allowed inside even without express permission, though he had needed to alert someone first of his arrival unless they had thought he was skipping out on duty. Even though currently he had no duty to skip out on, being stuck on Coruscant for a week and all. Still, he still needed to approach other Jedi in means of accessing the Temple. The medics were wary of letting him wander off on his own, and he really didn’t want Helix and Kix on his back if he ever disappeared.

He had visited the Archives a few times with General Kenobi when it came to battle strategy, using many of the materials there to replenish their info on other star systems and new tactics to use in combat. It was a haven for him whenever they visited — Jocasta Nu, the library’s owner, was kind enough to lend him a few books when he had taken interest in the novels stacked across shelves. He was surprised she let anyone other than a Jedi access her collection, but he never complained. He brought back her books in the same condition she had lent him, and the small smile that made its way onto her facade thankfully made up for the other commander’s taunts on his attraction to reading.

Thank the stars he didn’t have to sneakily ask any of his general’s to accompany him to the library. In fact, his ticket into the Archives was Barriss Offee, who had approached him during her break on Coruscant with a shy smile. “Hello, Commander.”

“Commander Offee,” Cody greets her. Offee donned her regular dark robes, a hood nearly masking her bright golden face and the diamond patterns across her nose and cheeks. He could remember her visits to him during his recovery, offering him a sense of kindness and she aimed to tend to the ache of his bones. She was a healer, and though Cody’s bones had already been mended by the bacta tank, he had appreciated her using the Force to ease his tiredness. She had even given him a small gift — a little woven pouch for anything he needed, which he kept in a drawer back in his quarters. “You need something?”

“Yes, I was hoping if you wanted to accompany me to the library at the Jedi Temple,” she tells him, wringing her hands together as she did so. “I was planning to go with Ahsoka, but General Skywalker sent her on an errand, and I didn’t want to bother anyone else.”

Cody raises an eyebrow at her. “So you wanted to bother me?”

Barriss’ face flushes in embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she squeaks. “You do not have to come, if you don’t want to—”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Cody chuckles, his grin easing the tension in Barriss’ shoulders. “I don’t mind. I had been hoping to go there myself, but I didn’t know who to turn to. Being on probation and all. Not sure if I’m even allowed off the base.”

“Oh, right, your discharge was yesterday, wasn’t it? I’ll tell Master Yoda you’re accompanying me on an errand. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

Cody blinks. “Are you sure?”

“It’s alright,” Barriss tells him, a faint smile growing on her facade. “Do you still want to come with me?” Though she gives him the option to decline, Cody can see the small gleam of hope in her eyes that he will accept.

“Of course,” he tells her. “Lead the way.”

They head to the entrance of the Coruscanti base, where Cody hails a ride from a taxi driver parked out in the front. The driver takes them down to one of the expressways down below, the skyscrapers jutting upwards from the Upper Levels like titans above him, blocking out the sun that has ascended in the distance. The buildings gleam like ivory all around as the driver loops them around their corners, and soon the Jedi Temple comes within sight. Cody could have mistaken it for a factory from here. There was just something of its geometric design, less elaborate and graceful than what he had expected it to be, though he still couldn’t call it anything else but the Temple. It blends in well with the other buildings, gleaming a ghostly white. 

Barriss takes it upon herself to pay the taxi cab driver ( which Cody is grateful for, because clones don’t get paychecks ) and they are both dropped off at the landing platform. Unduli’s Padawan then leads Cody down the long stretch of walkway to the Temple. 

“So, what exactly do you need at the Archives?” Cody asks her, striking up a conversation. “It isn’t schoolwork, is it?”

At that, Barriss laughs quietly. Her laugh isn’t like Iuya’s sunny giggles or Ahsoka’s cackling, moreso a small chuckle that she hides behind a hand. “No, fortunately. I was actually thinking of picking up a few novels to read. My master is taking me on a small campaign down by the Recto Sector, and I don’t want to be too bored on the way there.”

“Ah, I feel that,” Cody tells her. “You got anything in mind?”

“I figured I’ll find one when I’m browsing around. I know that Master Nu has a few recommendations this month.” She lifts her gaze up to Cody, regarding him with curiosity. “What about you, Commander? What are you trying to find? If you want, I could help you pick out anything you need.”

Cody doesn’t know how to tell her about his research, or what he’s going to use it for. He’s pretty sure what he’s doing is illegal, and will most likely raise eyebrows among the Jedi. The Padawans might be more enthusiastic about his plans instead of skeptical like their Masters, but it’ll be a bad idea to reveal what he’s doing when he knows most likely that Offee will tell Tano, and Tano will blurt it to Skywalker, and then Skywalker will blurt it to every other sentient imaginable and destroy Cody’s hopes once and for all. Besides, he’s pretty sure that if he does tell her, it would most likely make Offee more confused — and a little concerned — than anything else.

So he shakes his head kindly. “That won’t be necessary, Commander Offee. I’ve got my own stuff going out for me. Don’t want to distract you from your book browsing.”

He almost cringes at the way he phrases it but thankfully, Barriss is too busy smiling at his comment. “I appreciate it, Commander.”

When they enter the Jedi Temple, Cody is greeted by the grand sight of a large hall, rimmed by pillars that supported the gorgeous paintings above. He only takes a few moments to admire the architecture, the way that the columns are gilded with ivory and gold, more authentic than any other material such as his own sunset-painted plastoid armor. Offee leads him down a section of corridors, and Cody lets her, happy to relinquish his leadership and allowing the young girl to show him around the place.

“Have you been here before, Commander?” Barriss asks him with a honey-sweet tone. Commander Cody nods. 

“Come here every once in a while to help General Kenobi with a few matters,” he says. “Never came here without any company though. You live here, right?”

“Yes,” Barriss answers. “My dorm is just down the hall over there, right across Ahsoka’s. I’ve been living here since I was just a baby.”

Cody couldn’t help but imagine a baby Barriss Offee being chased down by Master Yoda down the many stretching hallways, giggling as she levitated sharp objects around her little form, and the thought makes him internally smile. “Sounds like a lot of fun.”

“Yeah, it was,” Offee says. She looks wistful and nostalgic in her next few words. “It’s a shame I don’t spend much time here anymore. I will not be seeing it for a couple of weeks more, so I’m thinking of spending my time with Ahsoka and the other Padawans as much as I can before I leave.”

“That’s good,” Cody comments. “In a war, it’s good to have other people to keep you company. Especially when you have the chance to rest.”

“Yes,” the Padawan agrees. “In a war.” 

Cody frowns at that. Barriss’ eyes are downcast as they inspect her feet, her hands coming together to wring against each other, her lips pursed as she goes quiet. There is a bitterness in her tone when she says _war_ , like it was a word that held so much strife and venom in it that it would be better to remain buried beneath the ground. “You alright, Commander?” he asks her, noticing her light-hearted behavior changed drastically.

“Yes!” she answers far too quickly, snapping back to her regular reserved posture. “I was just… thinking.”

Cody can almost recognize the edge in her tone. He remembers what she and Tano had suffered back during the Battle of Geonosis: being sent to infiltrate the factory and nearly dying in the aftermath, stuck on a ship with mind-controlling alien creatures where the entirety of Tango Company had been infected, even being controlled by the foreign alien species herself. He couldn’t believe the story when he had first heard. It was a miracle that she had survived, much less continued to aid in the war effort after such a horrific experience. It reminds him too much of…

He tries not to focus on the memory, or how he keeps on being painfully reminded of the ages of the Padawans he encounters in this war. _She’s too young for this. She shouldn’t have to worry about campaigns and battles. She’s just a kid._

“Well, don’t worry,” he tells her. “I’m sure you’ll find a good book to keep you occupied during your campaign. I could give you some recommendations if you like.”

“Really?” Barriss asks him, to which Cody nods. “What do you suggest?”

By the time they reach the Archives, Cody has given an immersive run-down of all the reads he had consumed during the first year of the war, all of which Barriss listened to intently and promised to check out. Cody had entered the Archives with her in tow, and felt himself be overcome with fascination for the cavernous space. Panels in the back of the long hallway filters in skylight that shines against the clean tile floor. Up above, the ceiling was decorated in gorgeous paintings with intricate detail. The bookshelves were stuffed with glowing cerulean books, illuminating the shelves in a gleam of blue. Down the center of the hallway were several tables lined up, computers for research and book finding placed among them.

The Archives is occupied by many Jedi, one in particular taking notice of the new arrivals. Cody recognizes her instantly, her long white hair pulled into a modest hair bun and golden robes cascading around her form. Her eyes light up upon the sight of them, a smile making its way over her ancient facade. “Ah, Barriss. Cody. Pleasure to see you here.”

“Good morning, Master Nu,” Barriss greets with a modest bow. Cody nods to her in respect.

“How can I be of help?” she asks, her voice like layers of silk.

“I’m browsing around for a few books,” Barriss tells her. “Do you know where I could find a _Crossed Nebulae_ by any chance?” At the title of the book, Cody looks at her with an amused eye. That had been one of the titles he had recommended to her, and one that she had taken a keen interest in when he had told her of what it was about. 

“Down at the last section to the right, should be in one of the shelves down the row,” Jocasta Nu directs, pointing to the respective section of the great hall, the one closest by the windows. “I’m sure that is where you’ll find it.”

“Thank you, Master.” Barriss turns to Cody. “We should meet here at the entrance in around an hour. So we have enough time to find what we’re looking for.”

“Sounds good,” Cody agrees. “Have fun.”

He sees Barriss giggle at his comment, and watches as she makes her way down to the last few shelves located to the back of the room. Jocasta Nu turns her attention to Commander Cody, smile unwavering in its old gentleness. “And you, my dear?”

“Oh, yes, I was wondering if you had any books on, uh, lightsaber techniques. Or blade techniques in general.”

( He could have phrased that literally any other way. )

Master Nu doesn’t seem very perturbed by his strange request though, a curious twinkle in her eye revealing itself in her honey-dark irises. “Ah, you have an interest in the art of lightsaber handling?”

“Uh, yeah.” ( Great job, Cody. )

“Seems well in your element,” Jocasta Nu comments, beckoning him to follow her down the long stretch of hallway. “You always had the wildest interest in things, much like your General, I can tell you that. Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“Not really,” Cody says. “I don’t really know where to start.”

The old woman stops right in front of a row of computer terminals in the center of the wall, conveniently placed in front of a walkway between two large shelves of books. The shelf aisle seemed to expand forever, the stretch between the shelves going out as far as a klick in his point of view. The books in this spot ranged from a dark oak to a light blue. “Well, I’m sure you’ll find something to suit your tastes. Most of the books in this aisle have anything you need — blade handling, the art of the lightsaber. If you’re interested in anything specific, you can always use the computers to help you. I’m sure there are articles there that can aid you as well.”

“Noted,” Cody says. He gives her a polite nod, doing just the slightest bow as he does so. “Thank you.”

“It is nothing, dear,” she chides him, giving him an affectionate smile. “I hope you will find what you are looking for.” She heads off to attend to the other Jedi accessing the library, her robes gliding like rivers against the floor.

 _Yeah,_ Cody thinks to himself _, I hope so too_.

What ensues is a half hour long search party for as many resources as he could find. He had received a few glances at his direction from the Jedi crowding around the Archives, wondering why the Marshall Commander of the 212th was browsing a section reserved for lightsaber dueling when he had no reason to, but fortunately none of them commented on it. They held in their concerned reservations while Cody went up and down the aisle, browsing up and down the wares and picking out several books, occasionally reverting back to the computer terminals on the nearby desk to help.

He finds a couple of interesting reads. Far too much honestly. He finds an entire twelve-volume set of the history of lightsabers and their previous uses by Jedi of the past, and by skimming through each one of the novels, he found them to be completely useless to him. There were a ton of books like that, concerning themselves with the history of the weapon, along with some accounts from the Great Galactic War between the Jedi and Sith.

It isn’t until a couple minutes in that he’s able to find actual helpful stuff. He picks out a remotely old manual, written by someone back during the Old Republic, the text pretty long but accompanied by a few notes in the margins. He finds another book that turns out to be a first account diary written pretty recently, drawings sketched out on the inside depicting different lightsaber stances and the many different forms of which a saber could be used. He had picked out about ten books by the end of his brief browse through the aisle, before promptly realizing that he really doesn’t need this much, and ends up with an essential three for himself.

Afterwards he has half an hour to spare, and heads back to sit at the computer in order to find some more resources. Jocasta Nu had passed him on her routine rotation around the library, and pointed out the many articles and notes he could find in the files of the Archives, of which Cody is deeply grateful for. He begins to do some holo research, taking down a few notes on a small card located in one of the hardcover books, a free space that allowed to take down additional notes. The librarian had kindly offered him a pen to use, and tried to assist him in any way she could.

Cody’s eyes burned as they stared at the screen for a long period of time. He had done all he could, and the notes he had taken down were more than enough of what he needed. He checks the time on the wall. Still too much time to spare. He sits at the computer for a few minutes, wondering what to do when he remembers another matter he needed to do some research on. He knows that the Jedi Archives were a database on knowledge, from past to present. It would not be a far stretch if they had any knowledge on the man he searches for.

Halfway through typing out _General Grievous_ on the terminal search bar, he feels someone blow against his ear.

Instinctively, Cody reels back his arm in an attempt to bash the person’s face in with his knuckles and backhand, but he’s met with empty air. Frowning, he turns his head, finding no one there. He nearly marked it off as just a rogue breeze, up until he heard a familiar voice come from his other side. “Hey.”

His head swivels the direction of the voice, and he’s greeted by a familiar trooper, same hairstyle that he himself sported, donning shining white armor decorated with scarlet red paint. Oh fuck.

Cody quickly closes the browser. “What the hell are you doing here?” Cody asks him with a raised eyebrow, both annoyed and relieved. Annoyed that his _vod’ika_ was here just at the wrong time, relieved that he did not accidentally punch a Jedi right in the face. He’s happy that his little brother is much too lithe for Cody to hurt him. He’s also disappointed that his little brother is much too lithe for Cody to hurt him.

Fox gives him a pointed glare, pulling out the chair next to him to take a seat. “Is that really how you address your fellow commander?”

“How else am I supposed to address you?” Cody asks him in a deadpan tone. “As a friend?”

“Asshole,” Fox sneers at him. He crosses his arms and legs, his gaze drifting down to the stack of books by his computer. He scowls at them with interest. “What are those for?”

Cody subtly pushes the books out of sight before Fox has a chance to read their spines. “What do you mean? What’s what for?”

“Cody, I can literally see the books from here.”

“Oh, can you? Last time I checked, you couldn’t tell your right from your left and you ended up tripping down several flights of stairs. And you still haven’t answered my question for why you’re here.”

“Okay, first of all, _you_ pushed _me_ ,” Fox stresses. 

“Weird, don’t remember.”

“And second of all, I’m on break right now. Sabacc night, remember? I don’t have to be back to the Senate Building til tomorrow morning.”

“So you’re spending it in the Archives?”

Fox gives him a poker face, which was basically his default expression. “You act like you’re surprised.”

Not really. Cody’s seen Fox flock around the Jedi Archives for the longest time, picking out books upon Jocasta Nu’s recommendation. The two of them read next to each other whenever their breaks lined up with one another’s, though they would often interrupt it with their jabbing at each other’s respective tastes or gossiping about their own troops. “No, I’m not. You’re lame like that.”

“Shut up,” Fox hisses at him. He does the closest thing he does to relax, as his stiff posture often made it hard for him to release the tension in his spine. The commander leans forward in his chair to inspect the books that Cody’s gradually pushing away from view. “So, what about you? What’s Commander Cody doing all the way out here?”

“Research,” Cody shrugs. “Nothing big, just browsing and stuff.”

Fox scans his face. Something that Cody had noticed since they were batchmates: despite his silver-tongue and masterful skills at deceit, no one could ever lie to Fox. He was the equivalent of a human lie detector, ever so keen to pick out every part of a person’s features to tell if they are lying or not. The troops beneath Fox’s command complained of their commander’s lack of flexibility and the ears of his namesake, as no one could ever keep a secret without Fox knowing. His _vod’ika_ was extremely nosy, and often shoved himself into his _vode’s_ business even if it didn’t entail him. He was an ass like that. Cody loves him for it.

Of course, he can’t let Fox know that. He has to keep up the guise of being the older and much more mature brother Fox saw him out to be. 

Finally, after scanning his face for a couple moments, Fox settles down, though the suspicion doesn’t fade away. “If you say so. But what’s got you so interested in lightsabers recently?”

Cody frowns. “Excuse me?”

“The book,” Fox tells him in a no-duh tone. “Again, I can see it from here. I’m not blind, Cody. Besides, I’ve seen that one around before. The one about lightsaber handling and that stuff.”

“Again, it’s just research,” Cody says. “I was just curious, that’s all.”

“You’re not thinking of pulling another Baltor, are you?”

“What, no!”

Fox stares at him, unimpressed. 

“ _Vod’ika_ , I’m telling you this once,” Cody tells him sternly. “This is none of your business.”

Luckily, Fox knows his limits ( at least around Cody ). He sighs and raises his hands up in defeat. “Okay, okay. But if I catch you wielding Kenobi’s lightsaber _again_ , you owe me ten credits.”

“Whatever, _Fox’ika_.”

At the nickname, Fox snorts. It was somewhere in the middle between a full-fledged laugh and a remote scoff. Cody looks back at the computer screen, the tab already closed and the files left unchecked. It would be good to do some research on General Grievous, find any intel and search for strengths or weaknesses, but he still had a whole week to do so. He already had all the information he needed, and Barriss was still not finished checking out her own books, so he might as well spend his time with his baby brother.

“So, how’s Coruscant like?” Cody asks. “Get into any trouble?”

Fox sighs in exasperation. “Unfortunately, no. I was stationed at the prison early in the month, then I got transferred back to guard duty at the Senate, then I got sent _back_ to the prison. Like some weird game of holochess. Most exciting thing to happen was the one weirdo that tried to sneak into the Senate Building and strangle Chancellor Palpatine.”

Cody blinks at him. “Someone snuck into the building and tried to strangle the Chancellor? How come I never heard of this?”

“You were off-world,” Fox shrugs. Though his tone is smooth and easy, there’s a slight tilt in his tone Cody recognizes as cautiousness. Off-world — like on the Tiika Satellite. “I’m not allowed to speak about it, so I figured you’re one of the only people I can tell since I know you can keep a secret.”

“Not even your own men?”

Fox shifts uncomfortably. “The last time I told them a secret that big it spread around the GAR like a plague. Those boys don’t know how to keep their mouths shut, I can tell you that. I’m not sure if they spread it on accident or just to spite me.”

“Damn,” Cody comments. “If it makes you feel any better, I could come over and knock some sense into them.”

His _vod’ika_ snorts lightly at his joke. “No, I couldn’t. I don’t think I could pull the trigger on my own _vode_ , much less send you to quicken their own demise. Besides, Thorn’s nice. He keeps me company over there.”

Cody hums, remembering the commander’s older _vod_ who was a part of another command batch back on Kamino. If Rex was Cody’s best _vod_ outside of his batch, then Thorn would be considered Fox’s. Those two had met back when Fox had broken his own nose on the training mat and Thorn came to defend him when the instructor scolded him for being careless, and the two had stricken up an unwavering friendship. Cody could remember the way Fox’s eyes lit up with unbridled glee when he realized the two of them would be stationed on Coruscant together. Commander Thorn provided a good contrast to Fox’s stick up his _shebs_ attitude.

“You miss the action, don’t you?” Cody asks him.

“Of course,” he said. “I don’t _hate_ it here. Well, actually I do. I don't get a lot of fun things to do like you and the others of the batch, no front line scheming or anything. Thorn and some of the other _vode_ who don’t hate me make things more enjoyable and the work keeps me occupied, but it gets sort of monotonous after a while.”

“Wow, big words,” Cody jokes against his free will. He earns a playful punch from Fox, and he’s pretty sure he deserves it, though Fox’s expression softens after his small comment.

“Jerkwad,” he scolds. Cody wonders if he’ll ever run out of taunting nicknames to use on him. “Besides, I don’t like the chancellor. There’s just something off about him. Have you ever seen him before?”

Cody shrugs. “Passed by him once or twice, never got a good look at him though. Don’t really have a grasp on him other than his friendship with General Skywalker.”

“Hm,” Fox hums. “I don’t know, _vod_. There’s just something about him. Something wrong. I don’t like it.”

“Probably because you have to see his mug everyday.”

“Ha ha.” Fox perks up then, almost akin to when the creature he shares his name with perks up, ears twitching and eyes meeting his. _Fox_. Called him that because of his lithe mannerisms, his snapping eyes, keen ears and smooth talk. The last time he had stuttered was probably when he was around five, when he was still finding a grasp on the languages of Basic and Mando’a. Now he speaks in lengthy sentences, not a single stammer in his words. “By the way, sorry I couldn’t visit you when you were in the medbay. I was sanctioned at the prison at the time, couldn’t find time to come and say hi.”

Though Cody doesn’t show it, his heart thumps with both fondness and regret. He knows he had worried his entire batch the most after the mission. It was the exact equivalent of Wolffe when his eye had been cut through by Ventress’ blade. He had expected Rex, Ponds, and Wolffe to worry about him — to have the twins, Bly and Fox, worry about him as well hurt him even more.

“It’s alright, _Fox’ika_ ,” he tells him, sending him a small smile. “I don’t think you would have liked to see me. Broken bones and all.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Fox says, poker faced. “I don’t like seeing you in general.”

“Ouch.” Cody clutches at his chest as if he had been shot. “You see this? You’ve broken my heart. I’m dying. Dead.”

“Shut up,” Fox laughs, punching in the arm once more. 

Out in the corner of his eye and behind Fox, Cody can see Barriss Offee, speaking with Jocasta Nu as she makes her way down to the entrance of the Archives. They both stop walking mid-conversation right at the large door, and Barriss tilts her head to scan the room, finding Cody among the many inhabitants of the library. She gives him a small wave as she balances a set of novels in her other arm, signalling that she was finished. Cody nods to her and stands from his chair, taking up his books as he does so.

“Well, _ad’ika_ , it’s been great talking with you,” he says, taking a few steps forward before trapping his _vod’ika_ in a headlock, making the younger yelp as he gave him a hard nuggie on his clean cut hair. “Have fun with the Chancellor. And say hi to Thorn for me.”

“Cody, get off!” Fox hissed, struggling to be let out of Cody’s grip. The latter obliges, albeit with a laugh that earns him a scowl from his fellow commander.

“Alright, alright. Let me know when you need me to beat someone up.”

Fox rolls his eyes fondly. “I’m not going to do that.”

“Lame.”

“Bye, _vod_. Sabacc tonight! Don’t forget or I’ll kick your ass!”

He and Barriss are then back on the walkway leading to the landing platform outside the Temple, where a few taxi cabs were providing passage back to the Coruscanti base. Barriss’ arms are stock full of novels, a few Cody had recognized from his past few visits to the Jedi Archives that he had recommended to her, to which he felt himself grin at. Barriss looks more content than before, offering the older commander a kind smile. “Did you find what you needed?” she asks him, tilting her head in her inquiry. 

Cody nods. “I did, yeah. Thanks for the company, Offee.”

“It is nothing, Commander.”

When she gives him that pleasant smile, he blots out the images of a girl with striped pink lekku and twinkling eyes as they both climb into the taxi he hails. 

He places the books on his lap, making sure that the spine and front cover are hidden from view to prevent the young Padawan from seeing its contents. Now that he has the materials he needs, he has a general idea for what he needs to do. He still has a week before he heads back out onto the field. He needs to spend as much time learning as he can. Learning and training.

So he stuffs down his guilt when he sends a message to Ponds on the ride back to the base, and tells him that he’s unable to make it to Sabacc night.

  
  


One of the many perks Cody had enjoyed due to his high rank as Marshal Commander was his personal training ground, a small room sanctioned off by where the 212th trained catering specifically to his tastes. Back then, he had often invited the other commanders to sparring sessions within his small training room, but as of now, he didn’t intend on any other visitors other than himself. Cody decides to head there around late night, the time when Ponds and the others would have begun their small game night down at 79’s.

He first visited his private quarters of the base, greeted to the tight of his bed folded neatly, a datapad he had been using the night before laying abandoned above the sheets. From there, he had grabbed the supplies he usually brought with him for private training sessions — a flask he filled with water down by the dispenser at the training mats, a small towel, and a few bandages in case of a slip-up. Cody didn’t really need them, since the last time he had broken a bone from a personal mistake he had been only a cadet. He couldn’t be too reckless though. He places them all in a duffle bag he had gotten off-world as a gift from a civvie and stuffs the books from the Archives in there as well, slinging it across his shoulder.

Finally, he heads to the drawer by his bedside, and opens it up to delicately reach inside. He pulls out the familiar metal object, shining in the light of his quarters, its top end sprouting from the hilt as if a crown. He fits the lightsaber between the bandages and the towel, makes sure its secure and closes up the duffle. Then he exits his quarters and makes his way to the training grounds.

The room isn’t super grand, probably only twice the size as his dorm. The door from the rest of the training grounds shuts, and Cody is locked inside of the space, where posters line the walls depicting sunsets and war propaganda courtesy of his _vode_. When they had first caught a glimpse of Cody’s personal gym, they had balked and asked him if he was as boring as his room was, and took it upon themselves to decorate it down to the bone. Cody approved of everything but the pin-ups, though he’s thinking of taking down some of the war effort posters lining the walls. Ruining the aesthetic is his main reason for why.

Cody sets down his duffle bag against a nearby bench as he scans the room. All the equipment was in order — the weights and dumbells,training mats, treadmills and trainers that are organized into their collective spaces around the room. At the center are a few training mats, and Cody makes sure there are no gaps between them before he spot-checks the other equipment. He unloads his duffle bag of its contents onto the bench, before hooking up the duffle bag to the wall and heading over to a couple of dummies located in the corner of the room, crossfire targets still painted on their damaged chests from his past shooting range practices.

In another minute, Cody has all of the mannequins lined up in the center of the room, each one perfectly functional and still. He inspects his work. Alright.

He checks outside to make sure there are no troops present, and when he finds there are none, he shuts and locks the door to prevent anyone from charging in. He walks over to the bench hosting his materials, and takes up one of the library books, and opens it up. It was the one that dated back pretty recently, written around a decade ago. It was also the smallest read out of all of them, only a couple of pages long since it consisted mostly of sketches and off-handed notes. It’s better to start with this one, as the others would be more helpful to study when he was stuck in his quarters and off the training ground. 

He glosses over the pages for a while, inspecting each of the illustrations with determined curiosity, thumbing his hands over all the different styles of handling. He could recognize a few of the techniques in the pages. General Kenobi’s usual stance during battle greatly resembled the image of Form III, which the notes in the margins said specialized against long-range assaults. He could recognize the many aspects of the form — small movements slowly building momentum, tight bladework and swift dodges — from how Kenobi usually handled a lightsaber, his movements defensive when it came to other _Jetii_ of the army.

He can also recognize General Skywalker’s use of Form V. It fit right in his element — power attacks and counterstrikes, more aggressive in nature than the more defensive Form III. He could already reminisce about his past battles shared by the appointed Jedi Knight, each of his actions swift and cunning, his eyes blazing an ocean rage as he dashed through opponents. Cody realizes, as he reads, that all the Jedi used different forms based on their preferences and upbringing. And somehow he could pinpoint all of them. Which isn’t that far a stretch, as he was pretty observant of everything around him. He could easily assert weaknesses in other people, the habit so ingrained in his head that it was hard to shake.

He stops at the last few pages, his fingers tracing over a small illustration of a Jedi clashing blades with another wielder, their stance wildly different from the other types of saber styles he had seen. _Form VII_ , he reads inked above the page in elaborate title. Beneath it were many other alternative names. _Juyo, Vaapaad, The Way of the Vornskr, the Ferocity Form._

For some reason, Cody’s interested, just from the names alone. He scans over the page, looking over the brief introductory illustrations depicting different techniques, each one almost startling to look at. Form VII, the most aggressive and ferocious of all the forms, turning the user vicious when it came to combat. Misleading movements, psychological tricks, turning emotion into brute strength used to confuse and incapacitate the opponent. Apparently it had been so bad that it had been restricted by the Jedi Order until someone had introduced a new way to channel it. Cody didn’t really understand the whole ‘leads to falling to the Dark Side’ label on the form, both because he’s sure it doesn’t concern him and he frankly doesn’t have any care for it.

He remembers when he saw the form in practice once. It had been during the First Battle of Geonosis. When Cody and his _vode_ descended onto the battlefield to rescue Kenobi, Skywalker, and Senator Amidala; to wreak havoc on the Separatist army filtering in from the arena. He had seen it in the ferocious eyes of the High General, violet lightsaber gleaming like a singular blight as it cut through droids without fail. Eventually making its way to…

Okay, that’s enough reading for now.

Form VII was the hardest form to master according to the book, and since he knows only one person who uses the technique, it could hinder his training. He doesn’t see the general all that much outside of battle, and he doubts that he’ll be available for teaching Cody about the form, much less agree upon teaching him at all. And Cody doesn’t at all like the idea of going up to the general for anything at all. His best option was to start with the basics and work up from there on his own.

Cody is certain that what he’s doing is illegal. Cody’s never done anything illegal, or at least anything illegal on this big of a scale. Training himself in some musty training room away from the eyes on onlookers and hidden from his Jedi Generals was pretty big; hell, even _Rex_ didn’t do anything on this big of a scale, and despite his _vod’ika_ ’s law-abiding attitude, he has performed many questionable tactics beneath General Skywalker’s command. Cody was doing all of this on a whim, all on his own without no one else knowing.

But Cody’s more determined than he’s ever been in his life. He doesn’t care if what he’s doing could be punishable by the Council, or the Senate, or anyone for that matter. When it comes down to it, Cody’s going to learn to not be a _hut’uun_ and pick up that goddamn weapon. If it meant avenging the lost and having Grievous’ head on a platter, then the trouble was worth it.

He shuts the book, graining the techniques and illustrations shown in the pages in his head, and does a few stretches to warm his body up. He takes up Iuya’s lightsaber, twirling it around his hand to test its lightweight, before activating it. It’s amber glow drapes the room in comforting rivers of light. He narrows down his gaze to the first training dummy he had set up, still sporting the red circle at the center of its chest. He adjusts his feet against the training mat. One in front of the other, free hand in front with the one wielding the saber at his back. He closes his eyes and takes in a deep inhale, steadying himself and stancing himself straight, building up his core.

When he exhales, his eyes fly open once more, targeting the dummy in front of him. And from there, he begins his lesson.

  
  


He ran out of dummies about halfway in.

By the end of the night session, he’s drenched as he sits on the bench, the towel he had brought with him wrapped around his soaked neck. He’s coated completely by sweat, seeping into the blacks beneath his _beskar’gam_ , and he had to get a refill of his water bottle to quench his thirst from such lengthy training. He finishes up the last few droplets of water before smothering his face with the towel, wiping himself down from the perspiration he had acquired. He’s still breathing heavily. His heart pounds through his chest, his body relaxing from its adrenaline high.

For the most part, he seemed to be getting a better grip on his lightsaber. He had improved upon his swings that felt less refined due to such a long hiatus since his training with a blade, and practiced different grip types as he trained both by himself and with the dummies that were in his room. He had gotten so into training that he momentarily became lost when he found himself with a dozen remains of the mannequins, their torsos and heads cut off in clean swipes from the sharpened edge of his blade. He had to leave after that, sneak into the training grounds outside his private gym, steal some more training dummies to practice on. 

Despite the high amount of inanimate carcasses he had amounted to during his sessions, he felt a lot more in tune with the hilt of Iuya’s blade. He was able to learn. Adapt. When he found a move was much too out of his element, he improvised by adding in some of the clone-combat tactics that Jango and his other teachers had taught him back at Kamino. He practiced deactivating and activating his lightsaber mid battle, false moments to confuse opponents, able to behead several mannequins in quick succession. It was through his past experience with melee weapons and the book that he often referred to that he managed to get a good grasp on how to handle the lightsaber. Like as he became used to it, it became used to _him_.

He still needed more practice. Lightsabers weren’t like any other sword, and as such couldn’t be wielded exactly like one. He would have to learn blaster deflection, defensive tactics if he ever pulled a General Kenobi and lost his own blade in the heat of battle, and dual-wielding both his rifle and his lightsaber if it ever came down to it. He was learning all the way from Form I, from the very beginning, and he would have to master it in order to be able to move on to other forms and tactics. Cody knows it’s going to take a lot of strain to pull through. But when he remembers what he’s doing this for, he persists.

While he rests, he hears a knock on the locked door to his room. “ _Cod’ika!_ ” someone familiar bellows from outside, his fists shaking the metal of the door as they pound against it again. “ _Cod’ika_ , you in here?”

Fuck. Cody quickly closes his water bottle and shoves all the materials and his lightsaber inside of the bag hanging from the wall, zipping it up and hiding it beside the series of treadmills located to the right wall. He pats down his face some more before tossing his towel on his bench, making sure his messy curls are neat as he reaches and unlocks the door.

Outside is Wolffe, still donning his white and gray armor depicting the Wolf Pack’s signature design, a wolf decal on his right pauldron. His arms are crossed in front of his broad chest. He’s scowling at Cody, and it’s not the regular scowl that rests on his face against his will — no, this is the scowl with both his dark bushy eyebrows knit together tight, his brown and gray eyes regarding him with a steely glare. Judging by his stiff posture and ferocity of his features, Wolffe was mad. Really mad.

Cody stuffs down the nerves that arise in himself. It wasn’t that Wolffe scared him ( Wolffe could never scare Cody, no matter how piercing his glare could be ), it was what Wolffe was mad about that concerned him. “Hi, _vod_ ,” Cody greets with a delicate tone, praying to any god out there in the galaxy that Wolffe had not been eavesdropping the entire time. 

“What are you doing here?” Wolffe snarls at him, dropping any sort of formality as his glare at Cody intensifies. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I’ve been resting Wolffe,” Cody corrects him. “I don’t leave Coruscant for another week. Shouldn’t you be down at 79’s playing your Sabacc game with the rest of the batch?”

“The Sabacc game already ended,” Wolffe tells him. “Bout an hour ago actually.”

Cody frowns at him. “An hour ago? Wasn’t it supposed to last til—?”

He freezes, pulls up his gauntlet and accesses the clock built into his wrist and… he’s been training for an hour past midnight. Huh.

“Oh, wow,” Cody hums. “Look at that.”

Wolffe rolls his eyes so far up his head it nearly jams his cybernetic eye. “After the game, I went to check on you but I found your dorm empty. Spent an hour trying to find you until some of your girls told me you were heading down to the training deck. So now that I’m here, care to explain to me what the hell you’re doing here at this kind of hour?”

“Look Wolffe,” Cody sighs, a headache threatening to overtake him, “I just lost track of time. Just a small sparring session, got too into it. I was about to leave when you showed up.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question.”

“But it solves your problem.” Cody backs up to go grab his water bottle and towel, zipping open the duffle bag just an inch to stuff the contents in there. “Look, I’m packing my things and heading back to my dorm. I promise I’ll get more sleep, just let me be out of your _shebs_ —”

The second he zips up the duffle bag, Wolffe lunges over and grabs it just as Cody is about to heft it up to his shoulder. He blinks at the older in momentary confusion, before scowling in annoyance. “Wolffe.”

“No,” Wolffe retorts. Cody attempts to pull his duffle from his grip but Wolffe’s grasp is like steel, preventing him from pulling away no matter how hard he tugged. They both tied when it came to brute strength, which is something that Cody had never regretted more than in the current moment. Wolffe, still holding on to the duffle, levels a scrutinizing gaze over Cody’s features. “You’re hiding something.”

“What?” Cody yelps. He feels his heart that had become lax after his cooldown spike up once more, hammering against his chest because _he swore, if Wolffe knows about what he’s doing, he’s literally going to jump into a Sarlacc Pit_. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now let go of my bag.” 

“You plan a Sabacc night with our _vode_ for an entire month, then say you can’t go just a few hours in advance?” Wolffe pulls on the duffle, to which Cody pulls back with an equal amount of force. “I’m no _di’kut_ , _Cod’ika_. You’re hiding something from me and I want to know what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s _wrong_ , Wolffe!” Cody shouts at him. It has become a full-fledged war between them, Cody’s pulling with all his might to keep a tight hold on the duffle bag, his nerves heightening to a dangerous degree as their muscles strain for dominance over the object. He’d probably feel so stupid, the two of them bickering like actual cadets, if he weren’t so bloody terrified. “I’m just going to go take a rest.”

“Bullshit!” Wolffe calls with a growl. “How do I know you’re not just going to come back here when I have my back turned? What are you even doing out here?”

“It’s none of your business!”

“So, it’s none of my business to look out for my little brother?”

“No! I mean— I just—” Cody struggles with his words, his knuckles turning white beneath his gloves as he pulls as hard as he can on the duffle bag. There’s just something building up in his chest, threatening to blow and overcome him in a sea of something he wishes not to release. He quickly shoves it down. Wolffe does not relent the bag. “You know that’s not what I mean!”

“Okay, so what do you mean?” Wolffe asks him, his _troan_ interlaced with his anger. “Tell me, _vod’ika_. I need you to talk to me.”

“I don’t _have_ to talk to anyone,” Cody groans in frustration, the feeling bubbling up in his chest. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“See, that’s your problem!”

“What?”

“That _I’m fine_ bullshit! I know what happened on Tiika. I know what you experienced, how many _vode_ are dead. I know you’re still hurting. But please, _please_ , stop putting this all on yourself.”

“What the hell are you talking about? I’m not—”

“Every single time. You put all this stress on yourself. You never come asking other people for help. All you do is keep it bottled up, dealing with it all on your own, never coming to me, or Rex, or anyone for that matter. You don’t bother letting us help you. Why is that?”

“Wolffe,” Cody grits out between clenched teeth. “Just quit it.”

“You think you’re invulnerable, that just because you’re Marshall Commander you’re invincible or some shit. But you and I both know that isn’t true. Why can’t you understand that?”

“Stop it.”

“ _Cod’ika_ —”

“I said stop it!” 

Cody kicks out with his right leg, hitting Wolffe right in the knee and destabilizing the latter to lose grip on the duffle bag, and Cody grabs it out the air before it can hit the ground. He backs up into the wall, clutching the bag to his chest like a lifeline, glaring straight at the ground due to the bubble in his chest having reached its climax. His lip is trembling, he’s shaking violently as he clings to the bag, his breaths quivering as he inhales and exhales into the leather material. He feels something cascade down his cheek, not blood like those many nights ago back on the base, but rather something crystalline, falling from his own lashes. Tears. Oh, for fuck’s sake.

For a few moments, the room is in silence. Wolffe staring at Cody with widened eyes filled with shock and regret, while Cody was blinking tears from his eyes and holding back a sniffle from the snot building in his nose. He’s backed up into a corner, despite how Wolffe is several feet away from him. Exposed.

Then, his _ori’vod_ takes a few cautious steps to approach him. Cody instinctively tenses, worrying that his _vod_ would grab the duffle once more and open it up to the secret object within. Wolffe stops immediately when he notices Cody’s flinch, and it isn’t until his muscles relax that he nears close to his _vod’ika_.

“ _Kote_ ,” Wolffe speaks to him, his gruff voice melting into something more tender, softer. At the name he had not heard spoken for what felt like years, Cody reels to glare at him.

“Don’t call me that,” he hisses.

( The day after Jango Fett’s demise, Wolffe claps him on the back, finding Cody by himself staring out into the oceans of Kamino, the stormy waves rolling past like cavalry across the blue. “You doing alright, Kote?” At the name, Cody stiffens.

“Don’t call me that,” he says. “It’s Cody now.”

Wolffe had regarded him with a frown, scanning his face to see if the younger was joking. But he could find no humor, no mockery in his facade — only that stoic demeanor he upheld without fail. “Cody,” Wolffe repeats, and Cody nods in confirmation. “Whatever you say.”

After that day, Wolffe calls him by many names. _Vod’ika_ , _Cod’ika_ , _ad’ika_. He calls him everything. Everything except Cody. Everything except Kote. Cody never understands why. )

Wolffe holds his hands out, his expression increasing with its softness. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry.”

He comes within arms reach of the younger, approaching him almost like he’s approaching a wounded animal, which Cody instinctively despises. He hates feeling so fragile, so weak and barren. He hates being the cause of Wolffe’s current concern, his _ori’vod_ reaching out a hand to lay it upon Cody. On instinct, Cody shrivels back, clutching tighter to the duffel bag for fear that Wolffe intended to grab it, but the man makes no such moves.

“Can I hold you?” Wolffe asks him, retaining that gentle tone. Contrasting so much with his sterner, grittier voice that commanded his men like blades of iron. In his eyes, there is a softness that rarely came out from within its den, his stony dark eyes melting into pebbles. The way he phrases his words makes something in Cody break.

Cody looks over him. He scans him for threats, so out of place because _it’s Wolffe, he’s never a threat to me_. But the feeling remains for quite some time. When he finally concludes no hostility, he silently nods his head in permission for him to do so.

Wolffe closes in on him, and places a hand on top of the duffle that Cody holds, and he freezes before feeling the other push down on it, forcing Cody to place it down on the ground beside him. Cody drops it gently next to the wall, and stands upright to face his _ori’vod_ once more. Wolffe opens his arms and envelops his _vod’ika_ in a full on bear hug. His burly arms wrap around his back and pull him close until Cody’s face is smushed against his shoulder. For several moments, Cody stands still as a statue, Wolffe’s arms wrapped around his torso.

Then, in a single instant, the tears once again begin to well up in his eyes. 

He doesn’t know how, or why, just that the tears just start and don’t stop coming, falling down his cheeks. He sobs inaudibly, shuddering in his older brother’s hold. Wolffe feels it when he starts to cry, and moves his _vod’ika_ ’s head to his chest, pressing the sharp edge of his chin atop his raven crown of curls. His older _vod_ begins to rub comforting circles over the back of his armor, quieting him with hushed whispers. “Shh, it’s okay, _Cod’ika_. I’m right here. Just let it all out. I’ve got you.”

Somehow his words make the tears build more, and he tosses his arms around Wolffe’s waist, burying his head beneath the crook of his neck. He hates how fragile he feels, his exterior falling short no matter how much he tries to hold back his tears, but he _melts_ in Wolffe’s arms, full of a warmth that he craved yet never had the courage to ask for. He feels weak but Wolffe is here, keeping him intact as he cries into his _ori’vod_ ’s chestplate. 

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes brokenly, but he has no idea for what, the words spilling from his mouth against his wishes. “I’m so sorry…”

“Don’t apologize, _Cod’ika_ ,” Wolffe comforts, rubbing his back as he nuzzles his nose in the crown of Cody’s curls. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I didn’t mean to lash at you like that.”

“No, it’s…” Cody knows he needs to pull away before he breaks even more, but finds that he doesn’t like the emptiness where another’s touch ground him to reality, and curls up against his brother’s chest. “It’s okay, you’re just looking out for me. I get it.”

“C’mon.” Wolffe brings them over to the nearby bench, sitting Cody down before following suit, his arms still around the commander’s trembling form. “There you go. You feeling better now?”

Cody brushes away his tears as he thumps his forehead against Wolffe’s shoulder blade, his older brother reaching down to brush away the remaining of his tears. He doesn’t have the strength to push his gentle fingers away, only falling into the touch. He hasn’t lain down his guard in so long. The bursting feeling in his chest dissipates, leaving only comfort and tranquility that he rarely experiences these days. Cody knows how to offer his pillar for others to lean on — hell, he comforted Wolffe as well after his experience against Asajj Ventress. Now Wolffe is his pillar, and Cody realizes that he’s never let himself be open with anyone like this in so long.

( He’s been holding all this in since Tiika. Just keeping it in, waiting for the bomb to detonate. And now it’s out. )

“Yeah,” he answers Wolffe’s question. A small smile forms on his face, which causes Wolffe to smile at him encouragingly. “Thank you. I needed that.”

“I know,” Wolffe responds. He pulls away and opens up an arm, and removing his shame, Cody climbs beneath it to rest his head against the older’s collarbone, his shoulders wrapped up in his _ori’vod_ ’s embrace. Wolffee massages his shoulder blade as the last of Cody’s tears dry up. “See? It’s good to relax every once in a while.”

Cody chuckles. “Yeah, yeah.”

“ _Vod’ika_ , listen to me.” Wolffe’s tone of voice turns serious, his eyes piercing into Cody’s as his grip becomes tighter. “No one’s saying you have to go through this by yourself. You can’t just hide away and keep secrets and expect us not to worry about you. We’re _vode_. You can talk to us. You just… can’t keep all of this to yourself. It isn’t good for you.”

Cody sighs, reaching a hand over to lace his fingers with Wolffe’s own. “I know, _vod_.”

“It’s alright if you don’t feel like going to Sabacc night with the boys. And it’s okay if you want to distance yourself for a while. But please, for my sake and yours, don’t put this all on yourself. Because you know damn well that I won’t let you. You got that?”

Cody snorts. “I got it, _vod_.”

“ _Jate_.” Wolffe smiles. They sit there in content silence for a while, Cody smelling the scent of late-night parties and drinks filled to the brim exuding from Wolffe, but it’s not a horrendous smell. It’s one that he inhales with a smile, reminiscing their cadet training, back when they went toe-to-toe on the mats in a sort of sibling rivalry, bandaging each other up afterward. He remembers winning, every single time.

( Wolffe had said that he let him win every time he lost. Cody always rolled his eyes and muttered a “Sure, _vod_. )

“Now that that’s out the way,” Wolffe suddenly announces, and with one arm he hauls Cody back on his feet. “It’s time for you to rest, _di’kut_. You are up too late, and if you wake up all cranky, you know who I’ll blame.”

“Okay, _buir_ ,” Cody taunts with a glare. Wolffe has the audacity to laugh.

Cody takes back up his duffle bag as the two of them leave the room and, together, they make their way back to Cody’s dorm. Cody taps on the panel on the wall when they reach it, the door sliding open to the neat bedroom beyond. He turns to Wolffe. “Thanks, again. For checking up on me.”

“Someone’s gotta make sure you’re not gonna do something stupid,” Wolffe laughs. He slaps Cody hard on the shoulder. “Now get your ass to bed. Or do you want me to tuck you in?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Whatever you say,” Wolffe shrugs. He offers him one last grin, full of sharp teeth. “Night, _Cod’ika_.”

“Night, brother.”

He watches Wolffe’s form retreat from sight down the hall before shutting the door. Immediately, Cody loses strength in his arms and unceremoniously plops his bag down on the floor, sighing in relief. It looked like his secret was safe for now. He needed to be a lot more careful next time, especially among his brethren, next time with a lot better excuses for his whereabouts. He doesn’t want another close call like that again.

Though his chest does feel a little light. Full of honey warmth. He’s _not_ going to break down like that again, he may never live it down — but he’ll try to focus on Wolffe being the brotherly bastard he is rather than the shame in his belly.

He unpacks all the contents of the duffle bag, placing Iuya’s lightsaber in the drawer compartment by his bedside along with the books he had gotten from the Archives, making sure they’re tight and secure as he slides the drawer closed. He goes to strip off his plastoid, stuffing it into his armory before hitting the freshers to clean himself from all the grime and sweat he had accumulated over training. After that, he changes into a fresh pair of blacks, falls flat face-first into his bed, and promptly passes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translations:
> 
> hut'uun: coward  
> troan: face  
> jate: good


	8. perilous flights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grievous stops running. His men stop too. The room is silent.
> 
> “You’re,” Cody grits out with every fiber of his being, “not going anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, i am so sorry if i confused you all with yesterday's update! i had posted it yesterday but i didn't like writing so little so uh... here's the full version because i'm indecisive as hell and i really wanted to write this for a long time now. again, super sorry, i promise next update won't be like this one lmaoooo. 
> 
> mando'a translations at the bottom! if you don't follow me on tumblr, just know that i'm horny for grievous.

Cody’s probation on Coruscant ended just at the right moment. The Jedi Council had received a holo transmission from General Grievous after his assault on one of the Republic ships out in the Outer Rim. He had captured Eeth Koth, a Jedi Master and general, and was holding him hostage out in the far reaches of Saleucami. General Kenobi had been full of eagerness for tracking Grievous down and rescuing the Jedi, and had briefed the men on the fleet of their plan to track down the Separatist fleet.

It was his first day back out on the field. Cody had been stuck on the base for weeks — half the time being comatose or bed-ridden, and the other half being stuck in his quarters or the training ground. His heart was already pumping as he donned his armor once more. He slid on the shoulder guards and shin plates and gauntlets, the weight of each familiar to him. The last thing he had donned was his helmet, ivory white with painted marmalade, his person visible in the black glass beneath his jutting visor. He inspects it carefully. It held no clear damage, only a few knicks from blaster fire and droid shrapnel from previous missions. When he places it over his head, the rim resting on his neck, it is like an extra weight added to his armor.

It was strange to wear it again, as he hadn’t worn it in several weeks. Honestly, Cody would prefer not wearing it in all. It had cooling systems, and it protected his face pretty well — but the black visor was much too narrow to glimpse through properly. When he sweats, it causes the interior of it to feel muggy and cramped, the smell making him physically grimace whenever he slips it on. It constricted around his head as well, so much so that he could barely move his facial muscles beneath it, and would resort to ticks of the head and his voice to communicate his opinions. He couldn’t be more impatient for the day when their Phase II armor arrives, and he wouldn’t have to deal with the smell of perspiration every time he wears the damn thing.

Once he’s got all his armor on, he turns to the other men around the barracks of the fleet, still dressing up. “Alright, troopers, let’s get moving!” he bellows out. His voice is like a wake-up call to them, echoing off the barracks’ walls as the soldiers quicken their pace. They filter out the door while Cody continues to yell. “C’mon, move it! We’re going to be here all day!”

While he’s surveying up and down the barracks as his  _ vode _ file out, he finds one of the newer shinies that had been deployed from Kamino around a week ago, struggling with their shoulder guard. Cody bites back a small smile, crouching down next to the kid and fastening the pauldron to the young rookie’s shoulder. The shiny looks up at him, beaming. “Thanks, Commander!” he exclaims, before pulling on his sunbonnet and booking down to the hangar to catch up with his friends. 

Cody watches him go. He ignores the small pang in his heart when he sees the kid leave sight.

“You ready, Cody?” someone asks from beside him. Rex, his armor shining in the lights of the barracks. His helmet stares back at him, Cody’s own bucket reflected in the blackness of his visor. Above it, the pale ivory was painted over with jaig eyes, staring at him in midnight  _ kebiin _ . Cody nods.

“Yeah,  _ vod _ ,” he says. “Just give me a minute.”

Rex nods back, though he does hesitate as he steps away to make his way down to the hangar. He’s still concerned for Cody’s safety since he was stuck in the medical bay, and had taken every single opportunity to support him by his side. However, today they were not going to be fighting side-by-side — Rex would be by Generals Skywalker and Gallia’s side, aiding them in probably the weirdest strategy Cody had ever been brief upon.

Cody looks down at his belt, and is relieved when he sees the small pouch that Barriss Offee had gifted him during his stay in the medical facility. It was strapped to his wait, clinking against his hip comfortably. It rested closely next to his blaster rifle, barely visible due to its dark color. He reaches down and touches the fabric, feeling the warm tingle of a lightsaber against his fingertips.

For the past week, he had been training non-stop with his lightsaber. Every day was spent inside of his personal training ground, studying the books from the Archive and working on his bladework. He’s been going at the dummies restlessly, lacerating them to shreds, while also improving on other areas such as deflection and counterattacks. He had practiced a few moves from Juyo, but then he felt dirty, so he decided to just scrap it altogether.

He knew that Wolffe would probably be pissed that he’s pushing himself even harder, but he figures he’ll never find out. Besides, he gave himself a few rests. He made sure he wouldn’t train again at night as well, and since then the only close call he’s had since was his sisters asking why there was a shortage of training dummies.

This was his first day back out on the front and commanding his troops. His bladework was tighter, more efficient, until he was a blur on the training ground. Hell, even his troops noticed when they invited him to a friendly hand-to-hand spar. Yet there was a turmoil of emotions coursing through his body. This would be the first time he would be facing Grievous since their last encounter. Just the thought made him queasy.

Still, he couldn’t let his feelings get to him. He may not be finished with his training and Grievous was still as much as a nightmare as he remembered him, but he had a job to do. And he had a promise to uphold. He was going to get Grievous’ head, no matter the cost.

So Cody makes his way down to the hangar to board their vessel, finding General Kenobi with two of the pilots docking the ship when he arrives. Down at the other end of the large space, he can find Captain Rex, following Skywalker and Gallia up the ramp to their starship. Rex glances at him from there and nods to him. Cody nods back, before boarding Kenobi’s cruiser.

Soon, they depart from the hangar. Cody checks on the other  _ verde _ around the vessel, making sure all their operations were in order before heading down to the bridge for their jump to hyperspace. The doors slide open to the large gray room, where several other clones along with Kenobi are stationed. Outside the cruiser, Cody could see a thousand star systems in the form of twinkling white lights, peppering the blackened void beyond. Light filtered through the window from the lights at the nose of the cruiser, dousing the room in a merigold hue. He steps up to the platform where Kenobi stands behind two of the pilots. He nods to the general that the rest of the men were ready, at which the pilots open up the communications channel with the near ambassador shuttle.

“Are you ready?” General Kenobi asks, and Skywalker appears in a hologram, his form flickering in shifting blue.

_ “Ready and waiting _ ,” he responds, smooth and confident.

The two generals talk for quite some time, both to brief one another again on the plan and bicker with one another. They had a habit of doing that. Commander Cody doesn’t know if he’s fond it or not.

From behind Anakin Skywalker comes Adi Gallia, interrupting their conversation with a judgemental frown.  _ “How exactly do you plan on getting Grievous aboard your ship?” _ Cody could see that she was as ecstatic about this strategy that he was.

“Not to worry,” General Kenobi refutes, his eyes focusing towards the great darkness out beyond their cruiser, his gaze pointed to where the Saleucami System was located. “The general and I have a history. I’m certain he’ll want to even the score, face-to-face.”

Cody’s fingers twitch near the pouch by his blaster, itching to unsheathe it. He almost wants to kick Kenobi off the bridge, have Grievous all to himself and fight him hand-to-hand. But that sounds stupid. He scolds himself — he knows better than to pursue grudges over the mission. He’ll be able to find Grievous in due time, but right now, keeping him on the ship was a first priority.

The generals talk for some more of Skywalker and Gallia’s jump to the command ship to rescue Master Koth. “Hopefully by the end of this mission, we will have saved Master Koth and captured General Grievous.” Kenobi nods for the pilots to shut off the communicator, and the two begin to calculate the coordinates for the hyperdrive. “When you are ready, make the jump to hyperspace.” He turns to Cody. “Commander, stay here on the bridge. I need to tend to some affairs.”

“Yes, General,” Cody nods. Kenobi retires from the bridge just as the ship lurches forward; the stars peppering the void of space become gorgeous white streaks, the room doused in a vibrant  _ kebiin _ . Cody grips to the seat of the pilot on the right before his body accustoms to the high velocity, and he’s back on stability.

The pilot on the left flicks a few switches, keeping his hands on the terminal in preparation for when they reach Grievous’ coordinates. He, like his sibling to the right, wore the standard gray uniform of Republic officers. “We’ll be there in around half an hour, sir,” the one to the left says to Cody.

“Thank you, trooper,” Cody responds with a respective nod, folding his hands behind his back as he regarded them with interest. “You two got any names?”

“CT-347,” the leftward pilot answers. He points to his sibling. “And this is CT-349.”

Cody shakes his head. “No, not, not your designation. Your  _ names _ .”

The two pilots share a glance with one another, faces articulating into confusion. The one on the right — much less rigid than the pilot on the left, much more leisurely and calm — pulls their mouth into a skeptical frown. “You’d… want to know?”

Cody tilts his head at them raising an eyebrow. “Of course. I need to know the names of the troops I work with. You both have names, don’t you?”

The two of them share another glance. “I call myself Checker,” the one on the right answers, though their next words are weighed carefully. “But, uh, my brother doesn’t have one.”

“We were usually called by our designations,” the left one said, sheepishly looking away in embarrassment. “I never really had time to think about it.”

“Ah…” Cody hums. He’s met a few troopers like that, who preferred to be called their designation either out of preference or convenience. Cody didn’t judge them at all, but he could tell from the way that the pilot was shifting in his seat that he didn’t want to be called a set of numbers anymore. “Would you like a name?”

The trooper looks up at Cody, frown giving away to a small agape. “You’re going to name  _ me _ ?”

Cody chuckles. “No. That,  _ vod’ika _ , is reserved for you and you alone. It’s your choice for what name you want. You got any ideas.”

The pilot fidgets, unknowing if he should answer, but Checker leans over and shakes him by the arm. Their eyes were darting back and forth between their brother and the commander, clearly mouthing something to the brother. Finally, the pilot sighs, turning back to the commander with an awkward expression. “I, uh, I like the name Clue. Doesn’t really mean anything, I just like the way it sounds, and uh… if you don’t like it, I could…”

“Clue,” Cody tries on his tongue. Clue and Checker. “Nice ring to it. Good choice, soldier.”

He’d never forget how Checker was beaming at their brother, or how Clue had flushed such a shade of crimson Cody was afraid he would burst. “T— thank you, Commander.”

Commander Cody remains on the bridge for the rest of the flight, speaking with his younger  _ vode _ to keep them company while they were steering the cruiser. They had been working under Admiral Yularen until they were assigned for this mission, piloting the cruiser that would be used as bait to lure General Grievous into their trap. The two were twins, born from the same bacta tank, but they held so many differences between them that it gave Cody whiplash. Clue was much more analytical and shy, while Checker was laid-back and extroverted. Cody admits that their little banter and talk eased his minds for the upcoming confrontation.

While they talk, though, there’s a feeling inside of him. A bad feeling. Telling him that something is going to go horribly wrong.

The cruiser soon leaves the comforts of hyperspace, lurching its passengers backwards as it slows to a grinding halt. As they exit the lane, Cody keeps his hands rested upon both their seats as his body adjusts to the change in velocity. Checker, who had been so invested in their talk with Clue about a holovid, nearly had their head slammed into the dashboard if Cody didn’t catch it in time.

Checker sits back from the close collision, grinning cheekily. “Thanks, sir.”

“Watch yourself,  _ ad’ika _ ,” Cody scolds them. “Wouldn’t want our pilots to get a concussion when there’s a Separatist general to catch.”

“Do you think we will catch him this time, sir?” Clue asks him hesitantly, wringing their hands in nervousness. “He’s eluded capture before. And after the incident a few weeks back… do you think we’ll actually get him this time?”

Cody doesn’t have an answer. He looks outside through the windows filtering in the light of stars, and finds a fleet of durasteel monstrosities, orbiting the planet of Saleucami down below, lime green mixed with streaks of cobalt and bone marrow. He feels his chest tighten once more, grip like steel against the seats before him, and his gaze narrows down on the largest ship at the center of the fleet.  _ Grievous is here _ . He doesn’t need any extraordinary sense like the Force to know it. He knows Grievous is here. Waiting for them.

“We’ll have to see,” Commander Cody tells them. He ignores the pit in his stomach, growing.

General Kenobi arrives on the bridge then, stepping onto the platform and resuming his place beside Cody. He looks out into the scene beyond. “Well, looks like the intel was incorrect, there  _ are _ Separatists in this sector. Commander, get a lock down right on Grievous’ coordinates to send to Skywalker. And hail the command ship. I would like to have a little talk with the general.”

“Clue, Checker,” Cody calls out. The two of them flick a few switches on the control panel before the miniature holopad glows once more, blue reflecting off their visages. Cody steps out the way of the call to allow Kenobi some privacy, residing behind Checker’s seat. He keeps his eyes trained on the galaxy beyond, refusing to look at the holocomm when the call is answered. He doesn’t think he could handle the sight.

Kenobi, as always, maintains his calm demeanor. He regards Grievous with a cool tone, a feat that Cody both envied and despised. “General,” he greets the unseen menace in an amiable manner. “I knew one day I’d catch up to you.”

_ “Kenobi.” _

The voice is like frozen water poured into Cody’s lungs, causing his entire body to freeze in place. He wasn’t even looking at the comm, facing away, yet goosebumps crawled on the skin beneath his blacks, his stomach shrinking and heartbeat ceasing. It was only his voice, his static voice, yet it was enough to turn Cody’s legs to putty. Cacophonous, steel grating against pure metal, nails on walls and blades plunged into  _ beskar _ . It was too soon to hear that drawl again, to listen to every syllable that vertebrates from Grievous’ maw. His body was burning like hot fire, burning him to a crisp.

“Yes, it is nice seeing you again,” Kenobi continues. “I suspect you already know what I am here for.”

_ “That I do,” _ Grievous responds. He clicks at Kenobi in a disapproving manner, causing Cody’s stomach to twist tighter.  _ “I will see you aboard your vessel, Kenobi. Ready your blade. You will need it if you want to live by the end of this fight.”  _ He spits out each syllable like bubbling acid, contempt and malice in each letter.

He hears the comm disconnect, and Cody takes his chances to turn back, and finds the holopad shut off. Near instantaneously, the command ship and the other vessels flocking its sides began to fire on the Republic fleet. A few fighters from the other cruisers deploy to counterattack the assault. Kenobi watches the scene unfold, running his hand through his auburn beard with amused blue eyes. “Well, we certainly have his attention,” he says to Cody. Cody can’t bring himself to joke along with him, the bad feeling piling up once more. 

“General, Grievous knows this is a trap,” he says. “Is it really wise to lure him here? What if he doesn’t come?”

“He will, Cody,” General Kenobi responds. “I know he will.”

That doesn’t really soothe Cody’s anxieties, but unfortunately, he’s in no position to argue. If Obi-Wan was so determined that their trap would work, there was no way of convincing him otherwise.

The general contacts Admiral Yularen from their main vessel, and orders him to keep Grievous’ fleet occupied so General Skywalker’s arrival would be undetected. The admiral complied, and soon the battlefield is purged in a ricochet of striking  _ ge’tal _ and  _ kebiin _ , the fleets firing on one another above the orbit of Saleucami. Grievous’ command ship with the other starships divert their cannons towards their own cruiser, while the fighters discharged from Yularen’s fleet make runs across their hulls. Cody watches a fighter exploding when a cannon hits its rear, sending the wreckage and pilot down to the planet below. It’s chaos out there. Bloody chaos.

“Commander Cody,” Kenobi calls, pulling Cody’s attention to him. “Do you have the exact coordinates of the command ship yet?”

“Patching them through now, sir,” Cody confirms just as Clue and Checker send the patch of numbers down to General Skywalker. He leans over to check on the pilots, their eyes trained on the battle outside as they brought the cruiser to the command ship. “How you two holding up?”

“Never better, Commander!” Checker responds.

“We’re fine, sir!” Clue assures him. “We’re holding steady.”

Then the ship  _ lurches _ leftward, causing Cody to slip and cling onto Clue’s chair to regain balance. The twins rock in their seats with the momentum while Kenobi loses his footing, clumsily falling to the ground. The controls cease to work under the pilot’s steady hands when they attempt to take control of the vessel. The ship then jerks forward, gravitating straight towards Grievous’ ship. 

A tractor beam. Cody swivels to face Kenobi once the ship rights itself properly, the general groaning as he struggles back to his feet. All around, the other  _ verde _ at the bridge had lost their balance and taken a fall from the lurch. “Tractor beam has us, sir,” he alerts the general. “What shall we do?”

The general stands upright, dusting off the dirt that had accumulated on his brown robes. “Let them think they have us,” he answers. “We need a diversion for Anakin.”

You’ve got to be fucking kidding.

Apparently his troops had the same issue. “Wait… so we’re… letting ourselves… be captured… by the tractor beam?” Checker clarifies, stressing each part of their sentence.

The plan was becoming more reckless as time progressed. He’s glad his helmet provides a shield of which he regarded his general with a face of complete incredulousness. This idea threatened to cost lives, lives that Cody was unwilling to lose, and he wanted to argue with his general. But he knows that Kenobi is as thirsty to bring Grievous to justice as he was, and he could not change his mind even if he didn’t. The sinking feeling grows in his stomach, but he shoves it down with every other turmoil within him.

He signals for Clue and Checker to stop their attempts of gaining back control of the cruiser, and they drift closer to the command ship.

With Cody’s help, the other troopers knocked over by the initial lurch are back on their feet, and they exit the bridge towards which Grievous’ boarding party arrives upon Kenobi’s instructions. Cody hauls Clue and Checker from their seats, and gives them a stern look from beneath his bucket. “General Kenobi is going to lure Grievous down to the bridge, so I need you both to stick nearby for detachment,” he commands. “Wait til we’re in the clear or for Kenobi’s orders, and do  _ not _ try to engage him. He is more than just another threat. Hide until me or the general call on you, am I clear?”

“Yes, sir!” “Right away, sir! Stay safe.”

The two of them exit the bridge to hide while Cody follows General Kenobi down to the docking port, with the other two of his  _ verde _ — Longshot and Lunger — sticking around their rear. They tread down the corridors of the cruiser, making turns to and fro as the ship neared the command ship, already hearing the docking tube approaching from outside. Cody unholsters his blaster from his belt on instinct, gripping it tight until his knuckles turned numb. He could not unsheathe his lightsaber with Kenobi around, not until he’s faced Grievous.

“Are you sure this is safe, General?” Cody asks him once more. “You know what Grievous is capable of. And my men…”

“Do not worry, Commander,” the general tells him, as they round the corner. “I will keep him distracted before he manages to do any harm to you all. But remember, we need to keep Grievous on this ship until General Skywalker is clear.”

They find Cody’s troops, crouched around the large hallway surrounding the doors of which the docking tube was coming to lock with. Their blaster pistols and rifles were unholstered from their inventory and aimed right at the entrance. Cody remains by Kenobi’s side as Lunger and Longshot stick to their stations on the opposite walls, affixing their own weapons on the incoming threat. The commander grips his rifle tight in his knuckles, heart hammering, blood roaring.

Obi-Wan gives him a concerned frown, sensing his fear. “Are you alright, Cody?”

Cody lets out a shuddering exhale. “I’m alright, General.”

The Jedi does not comment further despite a worried glance at him, but nonetheless returns to crossing his arms and glaring at the entrance. The ship stops abruptly when the docking tube of Grievous’ ship connects with the port, the tractor beam ceasing in its pull. Cody raises his blaster towards the entrance. He tries to control his breathing, fingers twitching on the trigger, already itching to use the lightsaber on his belt. He could barrage the Separatist leader with his blaster before making a break at him while he was disoriented, or perhaps just switch to the blade to confuse him. He comes up with several strategies in his mind, his other hand shifting on the pouch on his belt as he thought.

But when the quartet of sparks sizzle through the durasteel door, his body freezes in place. Molten glows form a circle as they carve through the entrance with bare resistance, creating a perfect circle. His heart palpitates harshly from the sound, arms aching as they uphold the blaster rifle. He blocks out the vivid memories that resurface upon the sight, and attempts to steady his hand. He concentrates on the door until the sabers slid from its surface.

Then, the loose piece of metal is kicked from its place, the durasteel chucked straight for Cody’s head. He and Kenobi dart out the way just in time before it hits them. Then come the commando droids, flipping out of the carved entrance, blasters in hand. The troop hanging out in the corner by the door shoots the first infiltrator, but another clanker takes its place, and grabs his brother before shooting him upside the head. Another  _ beskar’ad _ somersaults through the breach, taking out two more of Cody’s  _ vode _ .

Cody quickly recovers from the ground, shifting to a crouch as he aimed and fired with his rifle, taking out the incoming droids with quick precision. Kenobi wielded his lightsaber in a flurry, parrying each shot into the droids filtering through the hole. As they came through, more of Cody’s  _ vode _ were lost, each one numbing him further from just how quickly the deaths amounted. He rises from his position on the floor, bludgeoning a commando’s face with the butt of his rifle. He then spins around to shoot at another that neared dangerously close to Lunger. 

He’s cut short of his rampage when he hears the whizz of mechanical limbs, and an electrostaff slams through his body. A scream wrenches from his gullet as the electricity briefly coursed through his body. He’s flung across the hallway before he can even process it. 

“Commander!” General Kenobi cries out to him as he rolls upon impact on the ground, his troops already by his side. Cody’s vision swims as he struggles against the hold of his  _ verde _ , groaning when he comes to a stand. The Jedi stands before them in a protective stance, his lightsaber gleaming like twilight as he faces the bodies at the entrance, where two MagnaGuards were waiting, electrostaffs brimmed with violet electricity. 

Then, through the door, a cloaked figure steps through the entrance. He is enveloped in shadow beneath the broken fluorescents above the entrance, and Cody’s head is still throbbing from the voltage, but he can hear it. Breathing. Soulless, mechanical breathing. The  _ dawoor _ hits him through the filters of his helmet, filling him with disgusting dread. He had to resist the urge to gag. He cannot see the man at the door, but he can already envision those golden slit eyes, piercing his chest.

“ _ Kenobi _ .”

The  _ demagolka’s  _ words are drenched in contempt, loathing like venom with each spit of a syllable of his general’s name.

( Suddenly, Cody can’t breathe. Can’t think. The images bleed through —  _ bodies, so many bodies, death gripping at his flesh, the stench of decay and blood against  _ **_genet_ ** _ walls, eyes in the dark, a  _ **_nuhunar_ ** _ that fills him with unbearable pain and Cody wants to die, please just let him die—  _ )

It’s only after Kenobi speaks to him that he can hear anything but the hoarse respiration of the monstrosity down the hall. “Cody, take your men and stand watch down the hall,” Kenobi orders him, keeping his eyes locked on the threat surrounded by his guards. “I’ll deal with Grievous.”

“B— but sir—”

He stuttered. Cody actually  _ stuttered _ . He could almost scream and hit himself for his weakness, his heart beating so hard that he’s practically  _ dying _ , the images of the lightsaber plunging through her chest burning in his eyes. Everyone turned to him, realizing that their strong commander’s behavior had drastically changed.

Kenobi is one of them. He senses his fear, and turns to Cody with a stern look.

“Go,” is all he says.

Cody would have argued further, endlessly, perhaps even pull out his own weapon and deal with Grievous on his own, but his feet are plastered to the ground. He barely registers a hand around his wrist before he’s pulled down the hall opposite of the bridge. He follows in a daze while Kenobi lures the MagnaGuards and Grievous down the opposite way,  _ kebiin _ blade placed defensively before him as their forms disappear beyond a corner. By the time Cody looks back up, Grievous is gone.

It’s then that Cody realizes that his breathing is abnormal. His heart is unusually, blood bumping quick as a viper, chest aching as the minutes pass by. He’s hyperventilating.

Longshot notices and stops their sprint, turning to Cody. “Commander!” he calls out in distress, but Cody can barely hear him over the sirens of his ears. Their voices are muffled as he’s lain down against the wall, bucket choking around him as oxygen depletes because  _ please not like this, don’t let me die like this. _

“Sir!” Lunger cries out, reaching over to unlatch Cody’s helmet, and Cody’s face is hit with a storm of fresh air. “I need you to breathe, sir. Just breathe. Can you do that for me?”

Cody gulps as he tries to follow the medic’s instructions. He blocks out the horrors that unravel his mind, his brother’s voice soothing him as the panic continues. “Good, that’s it, sir,” Lunger tells him. “Just breathe. In and out. In and out. Just like that. You’re alright.”

Eventually, his breathing levels out. It’s a slow process, eternity passing before he no longer feels as if he was about to die. His lungs are no longer pained as he takes in each inhale and lets go of each exhale. Soon he can think, wracking his brain to recover, and soon his thoughts are coherent enough for him to speak. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he tells the troopers that crowd around his slumped form, gently swatting away any hands on him in an attempt to console him. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing, sir,” Lunger nods to him. His  _ verde  _ hauls him to his feet, his footing wobbly as he leans against the wall. Lunger hands him back his helmet, along with his blaster rifle that had been lost after he had been electrocuted.

“Where’s General Kenobi?” he asks the men as he slips back on the heavy helmet and holsters his blaster. 

“Down at the bridge with Grievous, sir,” Longshot answers, nodding to the opposing end of the hall where the others had disappeared off to. “Should we pursue?”

Cody wants to pursue. Desperately. At the same time, he wants to crawl into a small hole and decompose until he is nothing but dust. Now that his panic had ceased, his whole body was flushing in shame and embarrassment, disgusted with himself by his reaction just from the mere thought of the general. He reaches down to his belt and finds the pouch holding Iuya’s lightsaber, the warmth providing him a steady sense of reality as he leans against the wall. He lets out a relieved huff at the feeling, before shaking his head.

“No,” he tells his troops. “We have orders. We remain here, deal with any reinforcements. Let the general handle it. 

“Are you sure you’re okay, Commander?” Lunger inquires once more, reaching over to take his arm. “You got roughened up pretty hard—”

“I’m fine,” Cody snaps, tugging his shoulder away from the medic. He sees the medic flinch back in surprise, and guilt overtakes Cody. “Sorry. Come on, men. We have some cleaning up to do.”

  
  


The guilt begins to eat him alive as they retire.

He couldn’t believe it. Even as he and the remaining few left of the brief slaughter took post down the hallway close to the bridge, he still couldn’t believe it. He stares down at the lightsaber hidden away beneath the black pouch at his belt, the metal beneath fabric taunting him as he looks down upon it. He could not believe that he had frozen up like that. He had been yearning, obsessing over this moment for when he would be able to take on Grievous on his own, to make that monster feel the absolute  _ pain _ he had endured from his sword. But when he had heard him from the comm, when he had seen him down the hall, he froze. He was like a clone cadet, deployed to the front and seeing his first bloodshed. His eyes subject to terror beyond comprehension. Even after all his training, all the blood, sweat, and tears he had shed, he froze.

He knew the next time they were to encounter, Grievous wouldn’t be as merciful as he had been back on Tiika. He would be so much worse. What if Cody freezes up again?

He didn’t talk to his other brothers for fear that if he did they would be able to see more of him break. He knows that if he spoke to them he would fracture even more than he’s already had. He was already ashamed of his panic attack when he had seen the silhouette of every nightmare he’s ever had. They had seen him at his weakest, and he couldn’t let them see any further. He had faltered in his speech, literally  _ stuttered _ on his words as he spoke to General Kenobi, basically did nothing to protect the brethren that were slaughtered down the hall. 

Cody was a  _ hut’uun _ . A coward. And knowing that, it ate him alive like a rabid dog. He was a coward, just like that night on Tiika, unable to protect the people he’s loved.

He tries not to focus too much on his brooding, opting to aid with his  _ verd _ with the dead bodies lining the entrance to the port hole. Down the perfect circle, he could faintly glimpse the dull gray hallway, leading up to Grievous’ ship. The sight does nothing to welcome him, brooding and overcome with shadow despite the light that filters through the narrow corners of the hall. He focuses instead on a sight just as painful — the sight of several of his  _ vode _ , motionless as they lay there, helmets tilted upwards towards the sky. Their blasters were discarded by their splayed out legs, their visors cracked and torso shot open.

Cody kneels down to inspect one of the corpses, one of the vets he had assigned to be a part of their squadron for the mission. Wane. He reaches over with a hitched breath as he slips off the helmet on the trooper’s helmet, revealing his glazed eyes rolled up to the back of his head and mouth gaping out. Cody leans the man’s head on the wall by his slouched position, and shuts his eyes with two gentle fingers. He does nothing for the gaping jaw. There’s really nothing he could do for that.

He can see Longshot sitting by him, looking down at one of the troops shot down by the commando droids. His  _ vod _ had torn off his helmet to stare down at the clone whose head was situated upon his lap, brushing a hand through the dead woman’s curls as his eyes briefly flashed of pain. Cody watches the two for a while, his hands shaking against his lap. 

It’s so painful to look at, but gives him more anger than anything else. Grief was there, sure, but wasn’t grief already a norm for him now? Now all he can be is angry, otherwise he’ll just be numb. 

“ _ N’eparavu takisit _ ,” he says to Longshot when the other troopers are too busy conversing with one another in order to allow them some privacy. 

Longshot’s eyes dart up to him, momentarily in panic before falling away to a sad grimace. “It’s alright, sir. She’s somewhere else now. Free from everything.” The way he phrases it makes Cody’s stomach churn with his chest.

Cody scoots closer to Longshot, inspecting his sister’s body. Her silver-white hair fell from Longshot’s lap, sporting a blaster wound in the center of her chest. “What was her name? I’ve never seen her before.”

“Meeka,” Longshot answers. “Knew her my whole life. You would have loved her. She was as much of a troublemaker as I am.”

Cody snorts. “Please. No one is as much trouble as you,  _ Shot’ika _ .”

“You’d be surprised,” Longshot snorts. He fondles with Meeka’s hair for a few more moments, and Cody sees that the trooper’s eyes shimmer with unshed tears, before placing the woman’s diamond-painted helmet back atop her head. He pulls on his own in a flourish and gently rests her back on the ground. “So, what’s the plan? We wait here till General Grievous surrenders or something?”

“Something like that.” Cody doesn’t like how uncertain he feels. Since the start of this mission, everything from the strategy General Kenobi and the other commanding officers had laid out had hit a few sore points. Luring Grievous into their ship, organizing the men to fight off the boarding party when he could have ordered them to hide, blocking them from engaging Grievous while he was doing so… it seemed messy to Cody. He knew the general was avid about capturing the Separatist general, but this was uncharacteristic of him. Or maybe it was, and just on a larger scale. 

And now that he sees that General Kenobi chooses to take on one of the most wicked men in the galaxy alone instead of taking back-up, leaving Cody to oversee the dead bodies of the soldiers he had lost? He doesn’t like how he’s filled with an inner contempt. Cody wouldn’t go this unhinged even if he wants to strangle Grievous with his bare hands.

“You think General Kenobi will be fine on his own?” Longshot asks Cody when they return from the entranceway to the corridor that was only a few turns away from the bridge, voicing his own questions to Cody’s ears. The men were busy kicking at the  _ beskar’ad _ that had arrived shortly after Kenobi lured Grievous away, providing a sort of reinforcement to the Separatist general.

“He’s a wise man,” Cody tells him. “I’m sure he’ll be able to hold his own.”

Suddenly, Cody’s wrist comm blinks. He hears Kenobi’s voice from the other side, hurried and frantic.

_ “Cody, come in!” _

“Yes, sir,” he speaks, holding his blaster rifle up to his shoulder just in case Kenobi was calling for something that required conflict. By the way he spoke, he surely sounded like it. Cody crosses his fingers over the trigger finger of his rifle, and hopes to the stars that the general hadn’t done something stupid.

_ “Forgive the interruption, but I am in a bit of a situation.” _

Hopefully nothing. “Uh, what is the ‘situation’ sir?”

_ “Grievous escaped from the bridge,” _ Kenobi explains frantically.  _ “He’s heading your way right now.” _

You have got to be fucking kidding. “He’s  _ what _ ?”

_ “Clue and Checker are going to try to detach the cruiser before Grievous jumps ship. I need you to hold him off. Do  _ **_not_ ** _ let him escape.” _

Cody curses silently at Kenobi before shutting his comm off, turning to the men with a fierce gaze hidden by plastoid. “Battle positions, all of you!”

They organize themselves down the opposite sides of the hallway, looking out towards where the corridor ended and branched two separate ways, with the right way the one directly from the bridge. It’s while they stand there that Cody could hear it — the grating, grinding sound of Grievous’ metal claws against hard-steel floors, multiple limbs crawling across the durasteel heading towards their direction. He could already smell the man’s  _ dawoor _ from here, sickly and disgusting.

_ Don’t freeze up,  _ he begs to himself.  _ Please don’t freeze up. _

But he’s reminded of his purpose, of the tendons in his arms when Longshot glances at him from the side. No, Cody could not freeze up again. He can’t afford to. He takes in a steady breath, aiming to cure his mind as he faces the demon, hands shaking as he holsters his blaster to unlatch the opening of the pouch at his hip.

“Commander…” Longshot calls to him when the footsteps come closer and Cody begins to back away in preparation. Cody shushes him. He ignores how his limbs lock in place, how his breathing was hitched and his legs were like sticks. “What are you?”

“Quiet,  _ vod’ika _ .”

When Grievous rounds the corner on all four limbs, shifting so that he stood to his full-height in front of him, his full form now visible to Cody’s eyes, it’s as if a knife pierces through his chest. For a few seconds, he’s frozen when staring at those loathsome golden eyes, slit and glaring as they trained themselves on Cody. He’s torn by the images just of them — of the bodies that plunk against the walls, of the screams that echo down long corridors. He freezes up for a mere second. It’s like staring at the nightmares he’s plagued with, face-to-face.

But he’s reminded of his purpose, of the tendons in his arms and the burning images that Grievous had scourged into his mind. He can’t afford to freeze up. When Grievous rounds that corner and charges at them with eyes of glittering malice, Cody’s ready for him. As ready as his aching body allowed him to.

_ Just breathe. _

So when Grievous comes into sight, Cody does what he was too cowardly to do the minute he saw him. Cody ignores the talk of his troops when he reaches into the dark pouch, and unsheathes his lightsaber. He charges forward with the hilt of the saber in his hand towards Grievous before falling into a slide, kneepads grinding against the floor to come face-to-face with the general on a bent knee. The saber activates, and reflects like sunbeams across the cyborg’s face plate. Grievous stops running. His men stop too. The room is silent.

“You’re,” Cody grits out with every fiber of his being, “not going anywhere.”

Grievous ogles at him. Then he cranes his neck down at him in morbid curiosity, scrutinizing the clone commander who had charged at him, lightsaber in hand. It isn’t until after a few moments that he recognizes the painted sunset on Cody’s pauldrons and shins, the blade that Cody wields in his palm that gleams of sunlight, the same hatred and spite that had dripped through his words from the first words Cody had spoken to the general the night of the slaughter.

“The soldier from Tiika Moon,” Grievous hums. He’s not scared but amused. He could be grinning and it would be in the unknown, for Cody could only entertain the thought of slicing that metal face plate right off his fleshy head. 

“It’s  _ commander _ , actually,” Cody says. Grievous takes a step back when he advances on him slow and steady, and the sight makes Cody internally grin. “And you are not leaving this ship.” 

The man laughs cruelly, dreadful and discordant. “You think you can stop me?” Grievous retorts. He raises his arms and they split into halves, revealing the four mechanical limbs that hang spindly from his chest. There is a lightsaber in each of his claws, each activating one by one, increasing the tension and fear that grips at Cody. He’s bloody terrified. He’s been training for weeks, yet even with that he was practically a child in the face of this beast. But he doesn’t care, because now he’s fueled by his anger at the monster, the anger he’s been holding back for weeks on end. He’s not going to freeze up again. He’s going to face him, once and for all.

“Yes, I do,” Cody answers. He nods over to his men, and his next works are filled with enough fury to rinse them of their stupor. “ _ Fire! _ ”

The men rain hell upon the monster, their blue bullets aimed straight at the Separatist general. Grievous is able to dodge each one, deflecting every hit that comes his way with the sabers he unsheathes in only a split second, spinning them in quick succession as he dashes past Cody and through his  _ verde _ . In a single moment, more are down — leaving only Cody, Longshot, and Lunger in his wake. Grievous then sprints down the hall with clanking metal steps. Consumed by the resulting rage, Cody and his men are hot on his tail.

They fire their blasters on him as they run, but are only able to graze his armor due to poor aim or deflected shots. As he runs, Grievous lifts up a comm to his maw. “Open fire on the Republic ship,” he tells the operator on the other side. “Target their engines.”

Almost immediately, the ship rocks back and forth within its attachment to the command ship, the sound of gunfire brazing the cruiser’s engines in their chase. Grievous is trying to kill them. To leave him and his brothers to  _ die  _ while he made his escape. He’s fueled from the anger of seeing nearly all of the troopers’ that were on the ship with them killed, from the pure  _ rage _ he felt at the man responsible for his suffering, and he runs even faster.

Cody can’t have that. He’s not having another Tiika.

He only gives Longshot a glance, and the trooper nods immediately, unsheathing the grappling gun from his belt and firing on the general. The general teeters backward from the sudden momentum as Longshot and Lunger grab hold onto the rope. Grievous attempts to pull from their grip, but Cody lunges at him, bringing up his lightsaber to strike down at Grievous. He is immediately parried, and the two clash with the vibrant sounds of their sabers as Lunger and Longshot slowly haul Grievous down the opposite end of the hallway.

Cody ducks a swing from Grievous’ blade and barely misses the mechanical spinning of his sabers sliding across the floor on his knee pads before grabbing onto the cord of rope holding Grievous back to assist his boys, pulling back with all his might and causing the general’s claws to grate against the floor, sparks flying with the scratching metal.

They get down a foot or more of rope just as Grievous lifts up a blade, cutting clean through it. Cody lets go just in time while Lunger and Longshot fall to the ground from the momentum of their pull. Cody runs at Grievous again, but this time the general anticipates it. The commander leaps over a swing at his feet and manages to land a few blows before Grievous backhands him with a metallic wrist, his head knocking roughly against the wall. He grunts in pain but does not falter, ducking as Grievous plunges two sabers into the wall where his head had been, and deactivates his saber. He reaches down to grab at his blaster rifle with his free hand.

He strikes at Grievous’ head, the weapon bending right as it comes in contact with its target, but it incapacitates Grievous enough to make him stutter back. Cody tosses the dented blaster away before hopping onto the wall, then throwing his arms around Grievous’ neck.

Somehow Lunger and Longshot get the gist, because they jump right on top of Cody’s back, causing the Separatist general to be crushed by three troopers in a dogpile. Seeing his head fully exposed but unable to activate his saber from this angle, Cody punches him right in the face.

( Fuck yeah. )

Unfortunately for them, it only aggravates the demon further. He roars as he throws them all of his back, and Cody slams into the opposing wall. By the time he comes back into his senses, he can see Grievous body sprinting down the hallway, heading straight towards the docking port. As if Cody would let him.

He ignores the throbbing of his head or the yelling of his men as he unleashes his lightsaber once more, the amber burning to life as he chases Grievous down the hall. He runs as fast as his legs could take, panting heavily as his gaze focuses only on the runaway general, and catches up to Grievous just as he reaches the entrance to the docking tube. His lightsaber hangs in his grip, deadly with its blaze, and he raises it to strike. Grievous takes no look at him, but he anticipates his assault, and two of his blades reach back to block the attack.

Grievous spins around and now wields only two sabers in a dual wield, each of his slices quick as a viper, chafing off parts of Cody’s armor and even managing to sheer off the antenna jutting from his shoulder. Still, Cody ducks and dodges each of his attacks, jabs at him with snarls and roundhouses him whenever possible. Grievous lifts up both his blades to slice down on him, and Cody retaliates, using his singular saber to block the two of them down the intersection. 

Then, he hears a familiar voice. “Cody?” 

Cody glances to his right — a mistake — and finds General Kenobi on the corridor right beside the docking port, wide-eyed at the sight of Cody toe-to-toe with a metallic monstrosity. Just as Cody registers the bewilderment on General Kenobi’s face from the scene, the ship  _ rocks _ .

Obi-Wan teeters as he clings to the nearest wall while Cody loses his balance. Grievous takes that as his opportunity to shove Cody down, and he leaps through the emblazoned hole in the docking doors and makes his way down the docking tube. Kenobi follows him eagerly, while Cody with Longshot and Lunger, who caught up to them during the skirmish, follow.

As they reach halfway through the docking tube, their luck turns for the worst — the destruction of the starship outside causes the tube to bend at an obscene angle, electricity and sparks blazing the stretch of space in a glow of white from the breach. Cody and his boys lose their footing when the ground beneath them falls to a dangerous angle, the slippery ledges of the flooring as their chest plates clanged against the metal. Even Grievous falls back, his metallic limbs grating sparks against the ground while Kenobi suits himself to the nearest wall, raising his  _ kebiin _ weapon to strike at Grievous. The two of them battle, while Cody hangs from the ledge, watching the scene unfold.

It’s while he was hanging from his awkward position in the air, about to pursue Grievous and assist Kenobi, when he hears the stabilizers of the ship down below fry, the sizzling destructive sound deadening his ears. He doesn’t know why it didn’t snap to him sooner, nor know how sudden it took for him to realize that the only troops he did not count as dead yet were missing. He looks down at the floor below, the entranceway caving away. The metal groans. It’s like screaming. Screaming. From the pilots.

_ Clue and Checker are going to try to detach the cruiser before Grievous jumps ship _ .

They’re still down there.

Cody doesn’t think when he acts. “Lunger, toss me your grapple!” he shouts out. Lunger looks up at him incredulously but nonetheless obliges, and tosses the commander his grappling gun. Cody unsheathes the lightsaber that hung from his belt, activates it as he reeled it back, and plunged it through the floor of the docking tube. The metal is thick, and when he plunges the edge through it, no space vacuum sucks through the breach. He could hear Longshot and Lunger screaming at him when they see his body slide down the tube, golden lightsaber in hand, but he does not care, running on pure adrenaline and anxiety at this point. He slides all the way down to the bottom before unsheathing his saber from the metal, crashing down into the floor of the cruiser below. 

He makes a huff when his body collides with the steel grating and he ducks into a roll, yet does not waste any time as he books it toward the bridge. His boots pound against the ground with his heightened marching, breathing heavily while his mind only focused on one thing. He made his way down corridor down corridor as the ship rocked dangerously, spectating down the halls before he finally reached the sliding doors of the bridge. He finds a large circular hole in the doors, carved by a lightsaber through the metal, and through he sees his  _ vode _ , still at the controls.

Cody leaps through, causing both of them to jolt when he crashes right into their seats, his voice booming. “Clue, Checker! What in the hell are you doing out here?”

The two of them had been frantically grasping at the controls, frantically flipping switches and buttons as they attempted to regain control of the ship. Their facades were contorted into nothing but fear. “We’re trying to detach, sir!” Clue tells him. “General Kenobi ordered us to! Said to keep Grievous on board!”

Cody freezes. When he glances at the panel, he could see that the controls were basically fried at this point. They were basically useless. Grievous wasn’t even on the ship anymore. They had been sent on a suicide mission bound to fail. “This ship is about to explode!” Cody shouts at them. They are rocked again by another explosion, this one having targeted straight at their east end. His knuckles tighten on the shoulder of their seats as the twins sway with the force of the blast. “They’re firing on us. Few more minutes and you’ll be dead!”

“What about Grievous?” Checker asks him.

“Forget about Grievous!” Cody yells, gripping both their shoulders with a hold of solid iron. “Come on! Move it!”

The two of them nod and follow Cody’s lead just as the ship’s controls begin to spark, hotwiring to the point where it could explode in a manner of seconds. Cody grabs them by the arms and hauls them from their chairs, leading them through the entrance carved through the metal door and picking their pace up down the hallway, his hold tight enough on their wrists enough to bruise but he cannot worry about that right now. Right now, he needs to get them out. 

They make their way corridor down corridor to the docking port. Checker yelps when the ship rocks once more, and a rogue piece of shrapnel embeds itself into their cheek. Clue stumbles off-balance andis cut by several pieces of debris that fly past them, and it’s only through Cody’s steel grip that he’s able to steady his feet as they run. The ship falls apart around them, sparks flying and lights flickering on and off. Finally, they had made it to the open port, where all his troops were still residing within the docking tube. Cody unholsters Lunger’s grappling gun as they leap through and fires it on a ledge in the tube. Checker takes the end of the rope, and they begin to climb.

It was almost towards the high ledge-point situated near where General Kenobi and Grievous were clashing with one another, when the cruiser behind them teetered further. There was sparking electricity behind them, followed by a groan of machinery, the light flickering in the hallway as the tube steeped. The grapple lost its tether, and fell from the ledge, leaving them to plummet down below. Checker and Clue scream in his ears.

Cody thinks fast. He keeps latch of the rope in one hand and reaches out for the nearest in the other, managing to grab a ledge just in time. The force was enough to dislocate his shoulder a bit, but he only focused on the two men holding onto the rope with death grips, dangling in the air. “Grab onto that ledge!” he orders them, nodding over to a large jutting piece in the wall. The two comply, Checker grabbing onto it and having Clue wrap his arms around their neck, allowing Cody to let go of the rope.

Above him, he sees Kenobi clinging to one the ledges in the tube. Grievous crawls arachnid-like back up towards the door above, turning around to face them once more, masked in darkness. “Until we meet again, Kenobi.” He does not even turn around Adi Gallia attacks him from behind, merely stepping out the way and kicking her with a metallic foot, leaving her to dangle from the side of the entranceway. The cyborg disappears from sight just as the starship rips from the docking tube.

The vacuum of space sucks them in. Kenobi is blown back from the sudden force, nearly toppling out the docking tube if Cody wasn’t quick enough, reaching out and grabbing his wrist just before he could fall. Behind him, Cody could see Clue clinging to Checker for dear life. Longshot is hanging from the ceiling, gripping tight to Lunger’s hand after he had lost his grip on the tunnel.

Gallia manages to retreat back through the left open entrance, clinging to the metal to prevent herself from being sucked out again. She unholsters a grappling gun from her belt and fires it, the rope flimsy as it is pulled through the metal chute. Longshot, the farthest from them, grabs onto it with one hand before letting go off the roof of the chute, his boots slamming against the ground with his weight.

From there, Kenobi takes the rope, allowing Clue, Checker, and finally Cody to ascend towards the door above. General Gallia plants her heels against the ground to support their weight until all of them are secure and through the blaster doors, and she reels to hit the panel on the side of the entrance with the back of her wrist, cutting off the vacuum.

Cody's nauseous as he falls to his knees right besides the remaining men. The twin pilots are pale and shaky, looking like they were near vomiting. “You two alright?” 

“I— I’m fine, sir,” Checker pants. Clue coughs violently into his hands, but nods in affirmation. Cody turns to Longshot and Lunger, and sighs in relief when he finds them in an embrace, clinging onto one another, traumatized but still alive.

He could vaguely hear the generals arguing above him, Kenobi saying something about pursuing Grievous with Gallia protesting ( something he would be thankful for later on ), but the only thing he cares about is his  _ vode _ . His  _ vode _ that he held onto with tightened grips after the horrid experience, making sure each and every single one of them is okay. Cody doesn’t even know how he’s still functioning.

One call to General Skywalker and a rush to the nearby hangar later, and they board the small fighter housing the infiltration squad. Rex is there waiting for them, running up to Cody to help assist with the survivors, leading them to where Rex’s own men were seated. The ship leaves the hangar, and when they are a safe distance from the command ship, Cody sees the cruiser explode in a brilliance of reds.

The captain assists Longshot and Lunger while Cody seats Checker and Clue down to crouch before them, inspecting the minor scabs and nicks on their skin they had accumulated from the event. He presses a tender hand against Checker’s cheek, wiping blood from a spewing cut that had just begun to clot. The pilot appears dazed, staring off at the distance before their eyes land on Cody. “Thank you, sir.”

“You’re both going to be fine,” Cody promises them. He slips off his helmet to look both of them in the eye, revealing just how much he intended to keep his promise. “We’ll get you both to the medbay. They’ll fix you right up, don’t you worry.”

“They… they will…?” Clue asks. He’s dizzy, his head lolling around as if it is filled with gelatin. Cody reaches up to steady him. His heart hurts as he looks at the two of them, clearly affected by an event he wants nothing more but for them to forget, almost being caught in an explosion that would have cost them their lives.

“Of course,  _ vod’ika _ .”

He tenses when he wipes the blood from another stray cut on Checker’s chin. Kenobi. He sent them down there. He almost got them killed.

Cody’s hand falls limp upon the realization. In just a single moment, something seethes within him, mirroring how he had felt when he had lain his eyes upon Grievous’ hollow face. His body shakes with the rage that sets in him like a blanket. He rises from his crouch to turn to General Kenobi, speaking with Captain Rex and General Skywalker, who had switched places with Adi Gallia at the controls. He speaks before he can stop himself. “General Kenobi.”

Kenobi turns to him when he notices he’s being addressed. “Oh, Commander, I was just going to ask you about your fight with—?”

“What were you thinking?”

Kenobi pauses, confused. “I’m sorry?”

Cody almost has the gall to laugh. His veins were flooding with his unbridled anger, fists clenched at his sides as he restrains himself from doing something that he’s certain he’ll regret when he comes down from the pure rage he feels in his blood. “Why did you send Clue and Checker down to the bridge to detach?” he spits out, levelling a menacing glare at his superior, not bothering to hide the golden fury behind his eyes. “There’s no way they could have done that. The controls were fried, the stabilizers were knocked out. They were firing directly on the ship. You sent them to their deaths.”

“Cody,” the general begins, keeping his voice level in a negotiative manner, his exhaustion bleeding through the way he says Cody’s name, “we needed to detach in order to keep Grievous on board, to make sure he would not run off again.”

“Except that  _ Grievous was not even on board the ship anymore _ .” He steps forward, causing Obi-Wan to back away, almost in a stupor. Behind him, General Skywalker and Captain Rex reel onto the scene that Cody was creating. “They could have been trapped there and  _ killed _ before they even had a chance to detach.”

“No one could have possibly known that the ship was bound to explode.”

“But it was under  _ attack _ ,” Cody stresses. All the troops in the small space look up at the argument unfolding, their buckets ripped off with their eyes wide open in shock as Commander Cody balled up his fists with bared teeth. “Did you even  _ think _ about trying to rescue them? Or were you two focused on capturing Grievous to even  _ care _ about the men you’re responsible for? If it weren’t for me, they would have been blown to bits!”

“Cody—” Obi-Wan tries, placing a hand on Cody’s pauldron but he shrugs it off instantly, his gaze a fiery hearth that burns holes into Kenobi’s own.

“Don’t _Cody_ me!” he yells at him, his voice literally booming throughout the shuttle. “I had to deal with Grievous when you failed to hold him back, had to see every single one of my men slaughtered because _you_ didn’t want to deviate from your plan, which was, in my opinion, severely flawed. And then you, what? Go play chase with Grievous while these two risked their lives for you, and you don’t even have the decency to _apologize_?”

“Now, that’s enough—” Skywalker begins, coming over to defend his Master, but Cody reels on him with the fiercest glare he could muster. He sees Anakin’s eyes go wide. He thinks the man even shudders.

Cody suddenly feels a warm hand against his shoulder. He cranes his neck over to find Rex, at his side, giving Cody a stern yet sympathetic gaze. “ _ Vod _ ,” he whispers to him, and for a moment Cody forgets to be angry. “Come on. Let it go.”

Cody stares at him for some time, pursing his lips together as he sucks an infuriated breath through his nostrils, before exhaling a final breath. “Fine,” he grits out, but not without sending daggers down Kenobi’s way. “We’ll be heading down to Saleucami to track down Grievous, correct? Hopefully we’ll be able to find and capture him down there.”

“Commander—” Obi-Wan attempts, still trying to explain to Cody but he doesn’t want to hear a word of it. He ignores the guilt and hurt on his general’s face, his rage soothing but not enough for his resent to fade away.

“I’m going to tend to my men,” Cody interrupts. He shoots Obi-Wan a dirty glance. “You and Skywalker check on Master Koth. He seems to be the only person here you care about anyway, rescue and all.”

Kenobi looks like he wants to say more, but eventually nods, falling into silent defeat before him and Anakin exit to the cockpit. The latter sends Cody a disapproving scowl, but Cody feels no regret. It’s like there’s a weight lifted off his chest that coincides with the burning of his body, words that he had never spoken before now out in the open. He doesn’t know the right way to feel, only registering that his muscles that had contracted were now relaxed. He releases an exhale from the brief moment of peace he felt.

Rex still remains at his side. “ _ Vod _ —”

Cody shoots his brother a small glance, shaking his head. “Not now, Rex.”

“Okay.” He feels his younger brother pat him on the back, rubbing comforting circles on the rear of his chestplate before he goes to check on the others. 

Cody returns to Checker and Clue, who are staring at him with wide eyes and open jaws, clearly surprised that their commander would come to defend them. He crouches down in front of Clue again, nursing a small scrape underneath his eye. “Commander,” Clue asks him, stunned, “what just happened?”

Cody shushes him, giving him a small comforting smile. He would make sure they’ve gotten properly fed back on the fleet, send them down to get plenty of rest. “Don’t worry,  _ vod’ika _ ,” he tells him, reaching over with his free hand to clasp Checker’s cheek. The ship had begun its descent back into the flagship’s hangar, with the  _ verde _ rushing forwards outside to relieve them as seen from the window outside. “Let’s go get you both patched up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if filoni won't save those two pilots from the grievous intrigue episode then i fucking will. you have no idea how long i wanted to write cody yelling at obi-wan, i have been holding back this entire fucking time. he's done with his bullshit and so am i! (i don't hate him but like... do i?)
> 
> translations:
> 
> verd(e): soldier(s)   
> genet: gray  
> nuhunar: laughter  
> "n'eparavu takisit": "i'm sorry"


	9. looming forests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cody shrugs. “I’ve been training for a week.”
> 
> General Kenobi blinks. “A week.”
> 
> “A week.”
> 
> “Training?”
> 
> “Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all obi-wan know is use lightsaber, lack emotional connection, flirt, be gay, misread others and lie. currently coping with the phantom apprentice by having cody bash him in the fucking skull. i love taking canon tcw dialogue, staring at it, and concocting a weird-ass stew from it. btw, longshot and lunger are up on the fleet with checker and clue, just vibing. 
> 
> i am currently running on four hours of sleep because i'm that type of shit babey! currently resisting the urge to write oc stuff rn. translations on the bottom as always!

The bay doors of the cruiser they depart from open up to the long desert lands of Saleucami, where the dry and barren surface was littered with cracks and winding weeds. The air is hot and humid. It creates a muggy and stuffy environment beneath the plastoid of Cody’s _beskar’gam_ , forcing him to turn on the coolers within his helmet. Farther down the arid desert he could pinpoint several trees located around in a grove, barren brown hills melting into a soft evergreen as it stretched further out towards the horizon. The sky was a champagne hue. Puffy clouds stretched out from the east.

General Kenobi had assembled the 212th and 501st in their search for Grievous’ escape pod, which had been seen crashing down to the planet below. They had decided to search for the wreckage from the main landing sight first. The two battalions moved out with their ground transports and speeders as they made their way over the desert terrain. Cody stays alongside the other troops to check up on them, while General Kenobi and Captain Rex lead them on, discussing their strategy for how to find Grievous.

The commander had seen the general send him a glance or two as they were walking. He pretends not to notice.

Now that he was left without a weapon, as his blaster rifle was a part of the ashes left out in the depths of space, he kept his hand close to Iuya’s lightsaber, now out in the open. He felt no need to hide it within Offee’s pouch, knowing well that Longshot and Lunger must have told the other _verde_ about his little secret. The other troopers gathering around him whispered to one another, staring at him subtly, but Cody doesn’t pay attention to it. 

Yet he could not help but catch some of the whispers going around his troops. The 212th were renowned gossipers of the GAR and the 501st were nosy as hell, so it’s unsurprising that they would be unfocused when walking side-by-side by the infamous commander. They either spoke of his brief lightsaber duel with Grievous ( courtesy of Longshot and Lunger ) or of his rampant outburst at General Kenobi ( courtesy of whoever was present for that disaster ). They talk near the whole tread down the desert plains, and it’s only when Cody glares at them that they fall quiet. Even when they do so, he could scarcely believe that his glare could make even Anakin Skywalker shudder in place.

Right now, his mind is only focused on Grievous. He’s somewhere down there. At the crashed escape pod, or perhaps making his way towards another. Cody needs to find him. Their battle was far from over. And Cody’s going to finish it.

It isn’t long before they reach the wreckage. They begin scavenging and searching among the scrap of the shuttle, climbing over the remains scattered around the large basin of the plains. Cody himself kicks through hunks of scrap metal and durasteel, assisting his troops whenever possible. He helps them lift up chunks of the debris and search the grounds for any droids with needed intel. Most were out of commission, no longer ripe for information, but they persisted. Grievous, along with what remained of his soldiers, were no longer present at the sight.

The commander hauls himself on top of one of the largest chunks of craft out of the wreckage. He kneels down and runs his fingers over the metal. His skin tingles from the heat radiating from the metal. “Thermal housing intakes are still warm,” he reports to General Kenobi, who overlooks the _verde’s_ progress as they scouted the area. “This couldn’t have happened too long ago.”

Rex and Jesse descend from the highest point of the ship wreckage, right where the crew compartment had been. “The crew compartment’s almost entirely destroyed,” Rex reports. “Nothing there but droids. Too fried to get any useful intel.”

Obi-Wan runs his hands over his beard habitually, pondering the given information. “We’ll split up into teams. Rex, take Jesse, Hardcase, and Kix and search those wetlands.”

A surge of protectiveness overflows in Cody. “You’re sending them there alone?” Cody questions, rising from his crouch on the ship to attend to Kenobi’s side, scowling at the general.

“We’re not going to run off track, if that’s what you’re thinking Cody,” Rex responds. “I’ll keep Hardcase and Jesse in line, don’t worry. Kix will help me.”

“Hey!” Jesse pouts, placing a hand on his hip in a sassy manner. “Me and Hardcase are not always out of line.”

“Sure, trooper.”

“That’s not all I’m worried about,” Cody stresses, frowning deeply at Captain Rex. “I’m worried about you too. We don’t know this planet well. It’s dangerous enough with Grievous around.” He sees Kenobi open his mouth to counteract his statement, but he’s shut up when Cody gives him a passing glare.

“ _Vod_.” Rex reaches up to place a hand on Cody’s shoulder guard once more. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

Cody stares at him for some time, before sighing in defeat. Rex could be as stubborn as he was sometimes. “Alright. But if I get a message from Jesse that you’ve gotten hurt, I swear I will—”

“I get it, brother,” Rex rolls his eyes, releasing his hand from Cody’s shoulder. “I’ll be back, I promise.” 

Rex and Jesse make their way down the functional ramp of the ship to where Kix and Hardcase are, near the speeders parked in the plains. “Cody,” Kenobi calls, and Cody snaps back to attention from watching his little brother leave, “you, Crys, and I will pick it up from here. And, Rex” — Rex stops walking to glance back at the general — “if you get a visual on Grievous, contact us before you engage.”

Rex nods. He looks back at Cody, looking as if he wants to ask him something before, but settles for a nod that Cody reciprocates. He watches Rex tug on his bucket and make his way down to the speeder bikes, shouting at his troops to follow him out. In the blink of an eye, they’re already setting off to the farm-infested wetlands down the horizon. He continues to watch until the captain’s form disappears between the foothills, the rev of his men’s speeder bikes falling to a quiet.

“Rex is a smart man,” he reminds himself under his breath. He’s smart. He’ll be alright alone out there. He’s got his men behind him. He’ll be fine.

He takes displeasure that the general manages to hear him, in fact misinterpreting his entire comment. “Indeed, always thinking on his feet.” Kenobi seems to realize that he and Cody are now alone. “That reminds me, I needed to speak with you about—”

He’s interrupted when he hears a voice bellow from below. “General! Commander!” It’s Crys, shouting with cupped hands, his bright yellow paint across his shining white armor contrasting the orangey tone of the majority of the rest of the 212th. He was a fashionista like that. “You both don’t look busy. You mind helping us with these droids?” Though he keeps his words neutral, Cody could hear a slight annoyance in them that he was skilled enough to decipher from his tone. Lucky for him, Cody sees him as his personal savior rather than a disrespectful trooper at the moment.

“It can wait, General,” Cody tells him. 

Obi-Wan visibly deflates, but makes no argument. “Of… course, Cody.”

They search the wreckage for a few more minutes, going through the droids scattered around the area. All of the clankers that Cody finds are basically rubbish, their circuits and wires too frazzled to be able to robolobotomize. It isn’t until one of the shinies finds a droid sitting in a relatively undamaged escape pod that they have what they’re looking for. Its head sported no external complications, healthy enough to scourge for intel. General Kenobi inspects the _beskar’ad_ through the cracked transparisteel. “Let’s load the droid in the tank. We’ll inspect it on the go.”

They do a final perimeter check around the shuttle before they’re back on the way again, heading towards the nearest escape pod a few klicks away. Grievous would most likely be heading there by now. Better to gain more ground until they had a definite direction of where to go.

Cody and Crys reside within one of the walkers with the metal skull of the scavenged droid. Cody had hooked a few cords into its brain, connecting it with his personal datapad. Crys is by his side, holding the droid’s head steady as the commander analyzes its mainframe. The access codes are pretty easy to break. He had powered up the _beskar’ad_ ’s guidance system, searching through the files and files as he tried to find any clue to General Grievous’ whereabouts. Luckily, there was a ton of information they could gain from its memory logs, recording all the way from its production on the factories on Geonosis to the events that had occurred a mere while before.

He can see Crys staring at him while he scans over the paragraphs and pulses of the intel. He doesn’t need telepathy to know what he’s thinking. “You need something, Crys?”

“No, sir,” Crys responds too tardily with a shake of the head, his blond locks bouncing as he does so. He shifts the droids heads between his fingers, inspecting the metal as if it were the most interesting find in the galaxy. “I’m fine.”

Cody glances at him. He can see the weariness in his brother in the form of dark circles beneath his irises, eyelids drooping dangerously. He was exhausted — they all were. The battle with Grievous over the planet had taken a toll on them, and even if Cody yearns to find the general and make him suffer, all he wanted was for them to take a break. He knew that if they took even a single break, Grievous may already be on the other side of the planet. But he’s tired of seeing his men so worn and depressed after such a draining mission. Another reason for him to feel bitter.

It is then, as he scrolls down to the recent data from the clanker’s logs, that he finds his mark. “Hey, I found something. Look.”

Crys leans over to inspect the Aurebesh information before grinning. “Well, what do you know?”

“What do you have?” a heavily-accented voice comes in from above, and Kenobi descends down the ladder from the top of the tank, walking over to the operation desk to check up on their progress.

Crys explains how they cracked through the access codes of the droid and activated its guidance system. “According to its memory logs,” Cody tells them, pointing to the graphics on his datapad to gesture his findings, “it fired up the emergency thrusters on the escape pod to avoid a mid-air collision.”

“Collision with what?” Obi-Wan asks.

Crys answers in a matter-of-fact tone. “Another escape pod.”

“There was no time to correct for the steeper glide path,” Cody explains. “Which is why this droid’s pod crashed.”

“Can you pinpoint the landing zone for the other pod?” Kenobi questions. Cody nods.

“I can put us between two to three klicks of it, sir.”

Kenobi nods, and a grin appears on his facade. “Alert the men,” he says to Crys. “We’ve picked up the scent.” 

Crys nods with an accomplished smirk. His _vod_ leaves through the ladder leading up to the roof of the walker to announce their findings with the other soldiers. 

Cody begins to unplug the droid’s wires from his datapad for clean-up when Kenobi speaks to him. “Commander Cody, may I have a word with you?”

“What for?” Cody asks, not bothering to look at him.

Obi-Wan seems to weigh his words for quite some time, trying to find a way to make his thoughts coherent. While he does so, Cody fixes up the operation table, dunking the droid’s head down a trash chute located in a small compartment to the right. By the time the general finds his words, the walker’s probably covered around ten klicks. “I wanted to apologize for my behavior back there,” Kenobi tells him. Cody halts as he’s about to put the last of the tools in a drawer compartment.

He discards the tool and turns his gaze to Kenobi, looking at the general expectively.

“I do admit,” Obi-Wan continues, “that I was brash in my decision making. I should have never sent Clue and Checker down there. I should have checked up on you all instead of focusing on Grievous. I understand that I made you extremely upset. For that, I am deeply, truly sorry.”

Cody probably should have forgiven him right then and there, accepted his apology quickly with a small warning for if he ever abandoned his soldiers like that again. Moved on, so they could focus on finding Grievous instead of resolving this petty squabble. But Cody scans his face with an emotionless expression. “Are you?”

“Yes,” the general says. “Of course.”

That’s good enough for Cody. He nods to Obi-Wan. “Okay.” He is about to leave the small space within the walker when Kenobi stops him with a hand to his chest. Cody, instinctively, shoves it from his chest. He can see the hurt flash briefly over the general’s face.

“You’re still angry,” Kenobi says. 

Of course he’s still angry — hell, he’s _infuriated_ . He knows it’s unfair to Obi-Wan, knows it’s selfish to place blame upon the man who had saved his life countless times, his own general who listened to his ideas with a keen ear. Yet he cannot let it go. Every time he tries to focus on other things, every time he tries to convince himself he was being irrational and hard on Kenobi, he remembers Clue and Checker out of breath and near collapse, skin pale as their eyes are stuck in absolute terror He remembers Lunger and Longshot, watching their men fall because of Kenobi’s reckless plan to lure that monster to their ship without their approval. He would not be able to forgive easily, not when his _vode_ had been left traumatized because of Kenobi’s own doing.

Cody scowls at him. “What do you mean, General? I told you everything is fine, so obviously everything is going to be _fine_ now, right?”

“Cody—”

“Let me ask you this: have you apologized to Clue and Checker yet? Because _I’m_ not the one who you should be apologizing to.”

Obi-Wan is momentarily stunned, becoming a gaping fish in front of him, which answers all Cody needs to know. “Unbelievable,” he mutters with a shake of the head. “The men you nearly got killed and you didn’t even apologize to them yet.”

“We were in a rush,” Obi-Wan stresses. “We needed to get down to Saleucami as fast as we could to find Grievous—”

“There he is again,” Cody fumed out, settling a fiery glare on the _Jetii_ . “Do you even understand how many lives you put in danger? How many _men_ I lost because you were too focused on that… that bastard?”

“Cody, I care about my soldiers just as much as I care about my men,” Obi-Wan retorts, his voice strung high with his agitation at Cody’s unrest. “But in a war, there will be casualties, and no matter the cost, your men are willing and prepared to fight for the Republic. There will be those who die for it, but they do it for the greater good, and we honor their sacrifice greatly. They are the bravest soldiers I could ever work besides. But there will always be those who die for the cause. You cannot save everyone.”

Cody stares at him in complete shock of his words. General Kenobi, of all people. Saying that his _vode_ were expendable. Saying they were inevitable in the times of war, that if they die, that they were built to do so. But what about Master Koth? The Jedi Grievous had captured, who had been searched for from the other end of the galaxy despite the danger it posed? If Obi-Wan saw Master Koth and deemed him important enough for rescue, what of the clones? 

Cody could feel the rage roar through his blood as he speaks. “The issue is not that my men are prepared to die — it’s that you are not even doing anything to protect them! You make risky plans without considering their well-being, send them off to act as your personal cover and fixer-uppers whenever something goes awry. You don’t even try to rescue them when you have the opportunity. Maybe you can’t save everyone, but at least you can try.”

Obi-Wan is left speechless. “Cody, what has gotten into you?”

Cody glowers at him. “Excuse me?”

“One second you’re calm and collected, the next you’re fighting Grievous with a lightsaber and yelling in my face. I know you, Cody. This isn’t like you.”

“Well,” Cody suggests, “maybe you don’t know me at all.”

The room is filled with silence. Obi-Wan was right — this _wasn’t_ like Cody. Cody was patient, negotiative, and thoughtful. He sees issues from all angles, settles disputes with an iron fist, finds a better solution to problems that otherwise would lead to bloodshed. He could be stubborn at times but ultimately could never raise his voice at a superior officer, much less his own general. Among his brethren, Cody would have been the least likely to have lost his temper. Yet here he is now. Clenched fists, knit eyebrows, and a look that could kill the faint of heart.

He thinks for sure that he had hurt Obi-Wan’s feelings with his wording. Maybe even destroyed the small semblance of trust that had grown between them, which had been molded around the Battle of Ryloth, now left fractured after that mission. It isn’t until Kenobi speaks up that it’s not entirely the case. “Maybe I do not know you as well as I like to,” Kenobi tells him. His voice that before had been agitated and confused was now muddled with calm and quiet defeat. “But I do care for you, Cody. I really do.”

“What about Crys?” Cody pushes. “Or Clue, or Checker? What about Rex? Do you care for them too?”

“Of course I do—”

“Then act like it,” Cody tells him. “We clones are not your cannon fodder or your means to an end. We’re not just some tools you use to push your campaigns. We are flesh and blood, with minds just like natborns have. When I was enlisted to be your commander, I expected someone who would take care of my brethren. To stick by us and protect us just as we did you. But I’ve had to watch every single one of my brothers and sisters and siblings fall right before my very eyes. I had to watch, day after day, as the casualties grew. I’ve survived a goddamn slaughter of my _vode_. You care about them?”

“Yes.”

“Then get your head out your ass and care for them. Don’t take them for granted. You never know how it feels to lose them until you do.”

He thinks of Wooley’s words, back on the Tiika Moon. _I’m not saying I don’t want to fight. I’m ready to fight for the Republic, no matter the cost. But I also don’t want to just do that for the rest of my life._ Cody wants his brothers to have a life after this war, a life where they would not have to worry about being killed, picked off one by one until no one is left. He’s not having more die under his watch. Not when Cody’s determined to beat it into the brains of the Jedi that he was not going to let that happen.

“You got it?” he asks Kenobi, stunned to silence.

“Yes,” Kenobi answers, voice quiet as he muses over Cody’s words. “I get what you are saying, Commander.”

“Good.”

He’s about to exit the small space when Kenobi stops him yet again, this time by placing a gentle hand on his shoulder pauldron. “Cody, wait.” Cody offers him a glance, almost challenging him to question his voice. Obi-Wan looks as if he were about to say more, before pursing his lips together in thought. “You can use my speeder. It’ll save you the trouble of walking.”

Cody nods. “Thank you, General.”

  
  


By nightfall, they had reached the second escape pod. It was found around one or two klicks from Cody’s salvaged coordinates, lodged between a large crack in the ground’s surface and surrounded by vegetation. Kenobi holds up a signal, and the walkers halt in their tracks so he is able to climb down from the tank. Cody brakes his speeder nearby and unlatches a pair of binoculars from his belt.

“There’s our escape pod,” Obi-Wan mutters, taking out his own pair of scopes. “Any sign of Grievous?”

Cody brings up the binoculars to his eyes, squinting through the narrow film as he zooms in on the landing craft. It blinks a bright red. _No sign of life forms_ . As Cody scans the area some more, he determines that the area was completely deserted of Separatists, and reports the news to the general. The _Jetii_ hums, running hands through his beard in thought.

“He must be heading to a second escape pod,” General Kenobi deems. “It shouldn’t be too far from here.” 

He taps on his wrist comm to call the four troopers scouting out the wetlands. “Captain Rex, come in.”

Another voice rings through the communicator, but it isn’t Rex. Rex’s voice was gruff and stern, identifiable from a sea of troopers by its strict tone. This voice, though answering in a formal tone, is not his. _“It’s Jesse, sir. Rex was injured.”_

_What?_

“What—?” Obi-Wan begins, concern overshadowing his visage before Cody lunges toward his wrist, causing the general to yelp. Cody grabs his arm to access the comm with urgency.

“Injured?” he asks, voice rising with a strangling paranoia that threatens to burst from his chest. Rex had _promised_. Swore to Cody he’d keep himself and his men safe right to his face. It’s like the galaxy’s playing a joke on him, having the people he loves break their promises every time they leech off on their own. “Jesse, this is Commander Cody. How did he get injured? Is he alright? I swear, I’m going to kill that karking son of a bantha, he promised he’d be careful—”

 _“He’ll be fine,”_ Jesse’s voice confirms, though it does not ease the anxiety that grows with every second. _“Some snipers found us, shot him right through the chest. Luckily it wasn’t fatal. We mended him up, found him some shelter for the night.”_

“You just left him there?” He doesn’t mean to sound accusatory, but his grip tightens on Obi-Wan’s wrist gauntlet.

_“Don’t worry, sir, he’s in good hands. Kix said he’ll be fine by morning.”_

Cody isn’t convinced, especially now with the knowledge that Rex is holed up injured inside of some stranger’s home; all alone with whoever inhabiting this backwater planet. He almost wants to turn tail and speed off to Jesse’s location, find Rex and strangle him with his bare hands before taking care of him on his own. If there was anything that could break Cody, it would be losing his baby brother. But he can’t. Grievous is on the move. If he staggers back for even a second, that would mean letting him escape, and he could not live with himself if that ever happened. He cannot just abandon his men by his side either. So instead, he sighs in defeat. He mutters words of affirmation, thanking Jesse and the others for taking care of his _vod’ika_ , before releasing his death grip on Kenobi’s arm.

General Kenobi stumbles back, rubbing his wrist’s armor plate with a grimace, before bringing up the comm to his mouth. “Thank you, Jesse. Grievous is still trying to escape, not too far from here. We’re headed to the west. Swing around and we can meet up at the final escape pod — we’re going to need all the firepower we can muster.”

 _“Roger that sir,”_ Jesse says. _“We’re speeding towards you.”_

The comm link’s connection shuts off, and General Kenobi signals for the troops to keep moving westward, leaping back on top of the walker. Cody revs back up his speeder as their walkers resume their trail, marching between large plumes of violet vegetation native to the wetlands of Saleucami. He had hoped that General Kenobi would have not opened his mouth once more to address him, but as was common nowadays, he wasn’t so lucky.

“Cody,” he addresses him, “I understand that you care about your brother. But you can’t let your personal feelings get in the way of the mission. Especially not under such dire circumstances.”

“I understand that, sir,” Cody grits out, tightening his grip on the handlebars, already riled up. 

“I know you do. But I need you to be focused. I’m certain that Captain Rex will be fine. He’s a smart man, just like you said. He’ll recover, I promise you that.”

Cody doesn’t meet his gaze. Obi-Wan doesn’t know what it’s like. To have to leave a man behind in order to secure victory, to sacrifice lives in order to pursue a goal that seems further and further from reach with every passing day. Rex has been his best friend for the longest time — their bond was so inseparable, Cody doesn’t think he could _breathe_ without him. Obi-Wan doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know what it’s like to move on when he loses another life.

“I know, General.”

“That reminds me: I wanted to discuss with you about what will happen when we find Grievous. I’m going to need you to stay with your men, stay behind me, and do not engage unless I ask you to.”

Cody frowns in confusion. “Why, sir?”

“He’s capable of many things, Cody,” Kenobi explains. “You and I both know that well. You cannot just recklessly engage him head-on like you did.”

“Or like you did?” Cody retorts.

Kenobi grimaces at the comment. He sheepishly looks to the side, not meeting the commander’s glare. “Perhaps. But I worry for you, Commander. I do not want you to get hurt without any defenses.”

“I have a lightsaber.” 

“Which brings me to my next question.” Kenobi gestures to the weapon that hangs from his belt. “Where did you get that?”

Instinctively, Cody unlatches a hand on his speeder to guard the _jetii’kad_ around his waist, glaring at the general as a surge of protectiveness flushes through him. “Why do you want to know?”

“Cody, I’m pretty sure that if my commander acquires a lightsaber out of nowhere and suddenly starts swinging at a Separatist general, I am obligated to know just how this all occurred. I know that you have had experience with a blade before, but this is completely out of your area. Do you even have any experience in using that?”

Cody shrugs. “I’ve been training for a week.”

General Kenobi blinks. “A week.”

“A week.”

“Training?”

“Yeah.” 

In any other circumstance, he would have laughed at the absolute disbelief contorted on his general’s face. “I honestly didn’t expect you to answer that question. But that doesn’t make sense, you have been on probation, unless you were training while on probation, and— why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“Because _this_ ” — Cody gestures up and down at the distraught general — “is how you’d react.”

“I don’t get it. Why would you want to learn how to use a lightsaber? I had expected that you would only use mine, or that it would be under certain circumstances.”

“Grievous isn’t just your enemy, sir,” Cody answers. “He’s mine too.”

“Yes, I know that. But you cannot just go crusading for vengeance with the weapon of a Jedi. That isn’t like you at all, Cody. And you cannot just risk your life like that to settle a grudge.”

Cody stares at him. “Sometimes I wonder if you think before you speak.”

“Cody—”

Cody ignores him as he revs up his speeder, forcing the bike to bypass the walker and take the lead down the range of foothills. He’s tired of talking about this. He may be on the same boat as Kenobi when it comes to holding contempt towards Grievous, but Obi-Wan’s pain may never amount to his own. He can’t blame him for not understanding. But at the same time he blames him for not trying to. 

The night falls over the plains around him like a blanket of darkness. It descends over the hills and wetlands in the distance with the moonlight from the twin moons among the twinkling stars. Cody watches the world pass by, almost yearning to shed himself of his bucket and take in the fresh air of this new planet. He feels a semblance of peace here, here among the far-away cries of local wildlife and the ferns that bloomed like flora around their trail. He’d love this planet, he knows he would.

He can’t keep his mind from drifting towards the thought of Rex. He really hopes that Jesse had not been lying, and that Rex was safe within a friendly household, maybe taking a goddamn break for once. Cody swore his _vod’ika_ took a nap once every decade. He’s a little thankful that the injury would give him an opportunity to settle down. Still, he’s anxious the rest of the trip.

  
  


When they have finally overtaken a small hill pass jutting from the round around westward, and midnight had given away into the darkened hours before dawn, Cody could overlook at the edge of the trail a clearing among the coned trees and wild wetlands. He can see it in the horizon. The final escape pod, at the edge of the clearing, with a couple dozens of droids flocking its sides. They’re too far away to deduce their faces or numbers from above the hilltops, but Cody could almost sense the presence of the being down below. He recognizes the silver and the bronze, horrid and blightful, a titan among his henchmen. Grievous.

He’s so caught up in the relief of finding them at long last nearly dismisses one of the clankers shouldering a missile launcher, aiming right at the tank. It fires. The missile streams through the trees in a ball of pure light. “Incoming!” Cody screams out upon the approaching missile and jolts his speeder away just as it collides with the walker. General Kenobi easily somersaults from atop the walker just before it detonates. The troopers within the tanker make it out on time. Cody assists one of them from his cling to the top of the scrap, watching the _verd_ nod in gratitude towards him and book it down to the approaching battle below. 

General Kenobi, once again, activates his lightsaber, and leads the charge towards the escaping Separatists.

Blaster fires singe the edges of Cody’s helmet as he enters the clearing from among the batches of trees on his speeder, missiles being fired left and right towards the enemy. A few of the droids continue to launch missiles on the tanks down behind the troops, but the clones operating the ballistas were able to detonate the incoming fire before they managed to reach the tanks, allowing them to continue firing on the enemy lines. Over in the distance, Cody could hear the roaring of engines — Jesse, Kix, and Hardcase back from their search down at the wetlands.

Cody and General Kenobi make it to the heat of the battle, where the troops and clankers were firing on one another. “Cody, cover me!” General Kenobi yells out, and before Cody could protest, he watches the general speed through the battle droids organized in a procession, making his way towards General Grievous.

Cody fought back a sigh. He swore, if Obi-Wan was dead by the end of this mission, he might as well resign and retire in a farmhouse down by the countryside.

He almost heads to pursue and aid General Kenobi in his duel with the mighty general. But when he catches sight of the men falling by his side, he stops. He watches their bodies be penetrated by blaster bolts of crimson, hears their cries of glory snuff out like _nau’ul_ once their visors are cracked by a mechanized hand; defenseless and armed with only the weapons upon their backs. Cody can’t keep picking up after the general’s mess this time. He has a mission. He’s not leaving them behind again.

He rotates his speeder to where he faces a group of droids backing his men against a nearby surface. He revs up his speeder until it scorches him before gassing it. Before the speeder makes contact with them, he leaps off from it, allowing it to plow into their numbers. The droids in the collision are shoved into a line of trees before the vehicle explodes, leaving the others confused enough for Cody to make his charge. He intercepts the blaster shots aimed at his brethren, deflecting it back to the clankers and piercing through their metal hides. The commander hacks their bodies until they are of scrap metal upon the ground.

Cody does not waste any time in sprinting over to the next set of clankers surrounding another of his men. One of the _beskar’ade_ cries out in alarm when Cody mutilates its body into halves, then spears two more in quick precision. Another clanker attempts to take advantage of his rear, but Cody’s too quick, kicking out with his right leg to knock it back by the chest. He deactivates his weapon, transfers it to his other hand, and watches it activate right through the droid’s skull.

Wherever he goes, he takes his _jetii’kad_ with him. He deflects the blaster shots and shrapnel that threatens to pierce through his brothers’ armor, slices off the muzzles of their weapons aimed at their heads, kills off as much as he could before they had a chance to reach his brethren. He distracts the clankers to allow his _vode_ to aim their own weapons at the droids, fortifying a clear and easy shot for them while he deals with the rest of the enemy. With every _vod_ he saves, he moves onto the next.

Cody has never felt this kind of high before. Not since the humid deserts of Dakra or the grassy plains of Baltor. He pummels through opponents one by one, slicing their chunks of hide with a saber of glittering gold, kicking and bludgeoning until he is left with scrap heaps. He sweats like a mutt but he’s precise in his movements, his self-training that he’s been doing for a week bleeding with every action he took. He blocks shots and spun his weapon with frightening accuracy, downing the number of droids that had gained on his men. He feels as if his whole body was roaring with adrenaline.

He manages to block a droid aiming its blaster at Jesse’s head. He slices off the muzzle of its gun, causing it to panic. He takes it as an opportunity to dice it into bits and pieces, until it left a smoking metal carcass. “Damn,” Jesse mutters, staring down at the droid.

Cody nods to him when he hears the familiar clash of energy from the blaze of lightsabers. He turns around to catch sight of the ongoing battle between Kenobi and General Grievous, their blades clashing in a flurry of blues and greens faster than could be perceived with a naked eye. The skirmish was taking a toll on Kenobi, already exhausted from his previous encounter with the _demagolka_ , his swings growing more and more irritated as he attempts to land a hit on the stark-white cyborg.

Cody then hears a roar above his head. He shifts his gaze upward and watches as a dark shuttle passes by overhead. Grievous wasn’t using the escape pod to leave — he was using it to hail another. He reels back to Jesse upon his realization. “Concentrate your fire on that ship!” he shouts out. “We can’t let it land!”

“Sir, the cannons are overheated!” Jesse tells him, pointing towards the tanks, whose guns were smoking as the troops were cramming to fix it. Cody bites back a curse at the stroke of bad luck.

“Well, just keep firing!” 

“Affirmative,” Jesse nods. He turns to the other men around the area. “You heard the man! Target that ship!”

Now that the firepower concentrated directly on General Grievous had been lifted, the cyborg no longer cared to dodge the rage of blaster fire. He becomes ruthless in his swings, hacking and spinning like the sentient form of a virus. It was clear that Obi-Wan was struggling beneath the increase in lethality, gritting his teeth as he ducked beneath two of the putrid green lightsabers aiming to decapitate him. Finally, Grievous manages to land a kick on his general’s leg, sending the man to his knees with a yelp. He was vulnerable, entirely at Grievous’ mercy and allowing the man to make the final blow.

Not on Cody’s watch.

He sprints over just as Grievous raises a blade to land the finishing strike and dives between the two of them. He raises his blade and blocks the incoming hit.

Grievous is stunned for only a mere second, before narrowing his eyes at the commander of the 212th, pressing the weapon down and forcing Cody to dig his heels into the soil below. Cody’s muscles strain as he forces back the _vorpan_ that threatens to smolder his skin. Thinking fast, he glimpses down at the Kaleesh’s leg before kicking at his knee as hard as he can, causing the authentic limb to bend backward. Grievous staggers. Cody takes that as his chance to shove the Separatist back with his saber. He resumes a fighting stance, glaring at the man.

“General,” Cody huffs. “Protect the men. I’ll handle Grievous.”

General Kenobi shuts his agape mouth and nods, before racing off to assist the other troops. Cody and Grievous are left standing, calculated as they circled one another with predatory gazes. The general inspects him as one does a specimen, _ve’vut_ eyes scanning him up and down. “I must say, it is a pleasure to see you again, Commander,” Grievous hums with intrigue. He twirls the two lightsabers in his hands, its edges cutting into the blades of grass below. “I had thought that you would never recover from when I slaughtered your kind.”

Cody’s grip tightens on the hilt of the _jetii’kad_. The words sting as he glowers at the man. “You’ll pay for what you did.”

“Oh, I am sure I will.” Grievous glances at the amber weapon, illuminating the grass beneath. “How did it feel, Commander? To watch as I struck your men down one-by-one? As I plunged my lightsaber into that young Padawan’s flesh? That is the lightsaber she wielded, isn’t it? You must _hate_ me if you pursue me so much.”

“Cut the talk,” Cody interrupts him, “and come fight me.”

Grievous chuckles, hollow and malicious. “Only if you wish to die.”

Then Cody strikes. Their blades meet in the middle.

They clash again, Cody going at Grievous with unrestraint while the _demagolka_ blocks and guts, the scorching as their weapons meet one another permeating throughout the battlefield. Cody reels his blade back and forth, calculating each strike, aggressive and enraged. At some points, he has the upper hand. Others, Grievous anticipates him like an open book, nearly landing a killing blow on him. But Cody’s a persistent bastard, and he distracts Grievous as the men continue to fire on the ship above.

It is then, when they strike at the same time that their _jetii’kade_ clash together, Cody in such proximity of Grievous’ face to be able to smell the stench of death from his rotten flesh, that he notices the general’s eyes trail up towards the sky. He takes that as an opportunity to catch him off guard — but Grievous catches him. He dodges the kick Cody delivers to his leg, shoving the commander away before sprinting towards the crashed escape pod. Cody darts his head around to find the shuttle, hanging overhead with a rope hanging from its open door. _Osik_.

Cody books it across the clearing and climbs to the top of the escape pod, hauling himself over the edge to find Grievous awaiting him. The shuttle was only a few feet from where they stood. Cody tries to strike at him with his blade, but Grievous blocks it easily. He then delivers a powerful kick to Cody’s chest, sending him flying over the roof of the pod. Luckily, he grabs hold of the edge of it just before he crashes to the ground, other hand wound tight over the hilt of his saber. But by the time he can rest his elbows on the roof, the shuttle is within Grievous range.

“Until we meet again, Commander,” General Grievous hisses, mock bowing before leaping at the shuttle, grabbing onto the rope hanging from the craft. The clones fire at him with as much firepower as they could muster, but Grievous deflects each blast aimed at the ship as he climbs up into its hull. Soon Grievous disappears behind the closed set of doors, and the shuttle jets toward space.

Cody watches him go. Just watches.

Then the exhaustion kicks in. His arms burn from the energy he had now gone, his chest aching like his ribcage was fractured once more. He lets go off the top of the debris, boots clunking onto the soil. He discards his helmet as he leans against the escape pod. He’s out of breath, slick with sweat and huffing labored exhales.

Again. Grievous had escaped _again_. He’s so tired.

He turns back towards his brothers to make sure they’ve made it out alright when he finds a sea of troopers, staring at him with buckets shed and eyes full of awe. Their mouths were left so agape that Cody might as well have shoved a bantha through their teeth, their blasters frozen at their sides as they stared at him. In the center was Obi-Wan Kenobi, looking at him with an expression that Cody could only read as admiration. Admiration. Directed towards him. He doesn’t know how to process it.

As he stares down the line of troopers he realizes that their numbers were still strong. So much more than usual in fact. Usually after these types of battles they would have been downed by a half — but as he scans the crowd, more than half are still up and ready. Breathing, with beating hearts. The dead bodies left in the aftermath were few, barely reaching the double digits, less casualties than what Cody was used to. 

Then he remembers. Defending his brothers. Wielding his saber without an inch of fear as he deflected shots and scathed hides. Protecting them. And now here they were, majority alive, staring at him alive and well.

“Damn, Commander!” someone shouts from among the crowd. It’s Crys, his helmet missing, revealing his luscious blond locks that matted to his head. He’s grinning with pride. “You always fight that dirty?”

Upon his comment, the troops rush in like a tidal wave, smothering Cody with laughs of gratitude and smiles holding so much awe and warmth that it made him soften inside. Usually, he’d hate this attention — but the fact that the casualty count had been downed considerably, and most of the men that he had deployed with on the mission were still by his side, he could not help but smile in adoration. He lets them flock up to him, whisper to each other excitedly, pat him on the back. Jesse even offers him an arm around his shoulders, something that even Rex would be hesitant to perform outright in the open, and Cody hugs back just as tight.

When the crowd had dispersed to deal with the wreckage for salvaging, Cody returns to look up at the moon, frowning deeply. Despite the happiness he had felt when he saw that many of his brethren were in good condition, he was still angry. It courses through him, regret and frustration like a flood that swims and threatens to drown him. He’s been training for a goddamn week. He had promised to General Kenobi that he would be able to take on Grievous himself. He had prevented the cyborg from killing Kenobi and fended him off from killing his _verde_. Yet he still allowed him to get away. Is this how his general felt? Lost and angered for the elusive General Grievous, who slipped right out the palm of his hands at his last few moments? It probably is. He guesses he can see why Kenobi was so avid on his capture in the first place.

“The stars really are beautiful,” a voice whispers from behind. Cody turns his head to find General Kenobi, hands folded behind his back as he comes to stand by Cody, the two of them facing the skies above. Cody looks up, admiring the twinkling glow of the constellations above.

“Yeah,” he says. “They are.”

There’s a silence that stretches on, but this time it isn’t filled with an awkward weight to it. Cody may as well be down-right comfortable in it. Still, he feels as if Obi-Wan is holding back words, mulling over what to say.

“I wanted to thank you,” General Kenobi mutters. His words are genuine, as if they are spoken from his heart. “For saving my life.”

“It is nothing, General,” Cody replies on routine. “I’m… sorry. For letting Grievous get away. I should have done something, chase after him or…”

“Don’t apologize, Commander,” Kenobi quiets him. “The men contacted the fleet, there is a sliver of hope that they will be able to stop that ship. This isn’t the first time Grievous has escaped us, and it definitely won’t be the last. You did all you could. Besides…” Obi-Wan turns to face him, still standing tall. “I believe that I am the one who needs to be sorry.”

Cody glances at him, raising an eyebrow.

General Kenobi continues. “I have mulled over what you said. About taking care of my men, and not letting anything else blind me from doing so. And as I have meditated upon it, I realized that… I may not have been as grateful to them for all they have done. I say that the Republic thought of the clones as a means to an end, but I never realized that I may be contributing to that as well. Before, I never thought much of just how big of a contribution you provide to the war against the Separatists. How you and your men risk your lives for the Republic every day. I’m ashamed to say it never even occurred to me until I heard of what happened to you on Tiika.

“Protecting your men without a care for your safety, saving as many as you could despite Grievous being at every turn. And when I saw you out there just now — willing to risk your life for your brothers, and for _me_ — I realized you may be one of the best men I have ever fought beside. Everything you do, you do it for others.

“So, I’ve thought about what you said and… I will try my best to be more thoughtful and not to take my men for granted. And to not rush headfirst into battle without proper thinking.”

Cody stares at him for some time, processing his words and searching for any signs of bluffing. He could tell by the manner of his speech that the general was being as genuine as he could be. “So, you promise you will listen to me? You’ll take full responsibility for your actions and for my men?”

“Yes,” Kenobi nods.

“And you will apologize to Clue and Checker on the fleet?”

“I promise.”

“And you won’t do anything stupid without my word?”

At that Obi-Wan laughs. “I’ll try my best.”

“Good.” Cody breaks into a small smile. That’s good enough for him. “Thank you, General. I’ll hold you to your word.”

Obi-Wan smiles back at him. “It’s what you deserve, Cody. And if you ever catch me breaking my promise, I personally grant you permission to bludgeon me to death with a lightsaber.”

Cody can’t help it. He snorts. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Wow, threatening your own general?” Obi-Wan splays a hand over his chest as if he had been shot, fake shock overcoming his facade. “I’m hurt, Cody. I’m hurt.”

“I’ve been holding back the urge since I was deployed.”

“How bold of you,” Obi-Wan chuckles. “That reminds me, you really do have the inner workings of a true Jedi. It’s all in the way you fight; I’ve never seen anything like it. You have been training for a week on your own, correct?”

Cody nods. “Yes. I’ve been reading the books from the Jedi Archives to help me. Practicing and all that.”

“You’re very skilled. I could make you a Padawan if you so desire.”

At that, Cody groans. “Don’t you dare.”

“Really, because I am sure—”

“Sir.”

“Alright.”

Afterward, Obi-Wan chuckles to himself at the thought. Meanwhile Cody is trying to uphold his best _I will gut you if you even think about getting me a Padawan braid_ impression. Suddenly, the tension shifts. Obi-Wan’s gaze drifts down to the lightsaber strapped to Cody’s waist. “That lightsaber… it was Windu’s Padawan’s, wasn’t it?”

Cody feels his heart clench tight in his chest, but more of grief than offense. “How’d you know?”

“The way you get whenever I point it out,” Obi-Wan says. “I had my suspicions. You were close to her, weren’t you? She’s the reason why you’re so intent on killing Grievous.”

Cody didn’t have the energy to lie or excuse himself. Obi-Wan had somehow read him from top to bottom, found out everything about him with just a single glance. But the feeling he possesses when he unclips the hilt of the _jetii’kad_ from his waist is much stronger than spite or annoyance. He looks down at the metal, gleaming in the radiance of the twin moons above.

“She gave it to me when she died,” Cody tells him, voice barely above a whisper. “Told me to use it to protect everyone. I promised her I would. I wanted to learn how to use it, how to fight with it. To honor her, to protect my brothers. And to kill that karking _bastard_.”

Obi-Wan nods. One of his hands unlatch from its folded posture behind his back, placing it atop his shoulder guard with the gentleness of a craftsman. “She would have been proud,” is all he says. “You’re a good man, Cody. A real good man.”

Cody’s throat hitches before he manages to speak. “Thank you, sir,” he tells him. “And please, for my sake, try to keep this whole incident just between us and the others. I already have Longshot and Lunger gossiping around the GAR. I wouldn’t want the Council and Republic on my back with your word to back it up.”

Obi-Wan freezes up. “Uh oh.”

Cody frowns. That didn’t sound good. “What is it?”

“Yes, um…” Obi-Wan stammers, looking sheepishly to the side as he lifted his hand from Cody’s shoulder. “I perhaps might have… mentioned it to Anakin before we left.”

“What?”

“And Masters Koth and Gallia while you were busy.”

“ _What?_ ”

“And knowing that, they’ll probably have told the whole Jedi Order by the time we get back to the fleet.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“I wouldn’t hold it against you.”

By the time of daybreak, the shuttles from the fleet came to pick them up. Cody organizes the men into the gunships that flew down to the planet surface, making sure each one was accounted for as they boarded. Though the body count still was pretty low, they had taken their time in burning the cadavers of the dead, ashes returning from which they were birthed. Cody had been overseeing the men when he heard footsteps approaching from behind him. He turns to find General Kenobi again, walking towards him holding his communicator, stripped from his gauntlet.

“Cody!” he calls. “It’s Rex. I told him you wanted to talk to him.”

Cody practically lunges for the communicator. He grabs it in a haste, bringing it so close to his mouth it clunks against his bucket. “Rex? Rex, do you copy?”

“I’m here, Cody.” Stoic, gruff and exasperated. It’s Rex. He immediately recognizes it, the sound so familiar and soothing to him that he could almost cry out in joy ( he nearly does ). Cody sighs in pure relief, warmed by the knowledge that his baby brother was safe and sound, before a flare of rage overtakes him. He glares at the comm as if it were the captain himself.

“You asshole, you had me worried the entire goddamn trip!” he hisses at the communicator. “You promised me you wouldn’t get yourself injured. Where are you right now? Are you heading back yet? Do you need me to come pick you up? What happened after you were shot?”

“ _Vod_ , calm down.”

“I’ll ‘calm down’ when you tell me everything.”

Fortunately, Rex does tell him everything. Told him of the clanker snipers who shot him dead in the chest, and how Jesse and the others had dropped him off at a nearby farm to recover. There had been a family there, who had nursed Rex back to health, though his _vod’ika_ did not give him any details of who they were or where they lived. When Cody had suggested that he come over to thank them personally, the captain had adamantly refused. Besides, Rex had already begun to make his trek to their coordinates by sunrise, being gifted a mule as a means of transportation. He would be there in due time, he said.

Cody shakes his head in disbelief. “So, you’re okay? You’re not in any pain?”

“Yes, _vod_ ,” Rex sighs. “I’m alright, honest.”

“Good,” Cody says. “I need you in good condition before I beat you to death.”

( He could hear Rex grumble in the background. )

“Now get your _shebs_ back here,” he continues. “We’re leaving in half an hour.”

“I’m almost there. Don’t worry, Cody.”

“Too late for that, _Rex’ika_. Oh, by the way, after I kick your ass, you mind buying me a casket on the way back to base?”

“Uh… why?”

Cody gives Obi-Wan a passing glance. A headache beginning to form. “I’ll tell you when you get here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translations:
> 
> jetii'kad: lightsaber  
> nau'ul: candlelight


	10. rippling sunsets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They finally arrive at the mess hall when Cody and Rex are halted by a large body at the door, blocking their entrance into the large room. Wolffe, all crossed arms and steely glares, looming over them despite being only a single inch taller than them. He’s giving Cody a begrudged expression. Rex freezes while Cody stares back at his ori’vod, upholding the best poker face he could muster. “Hey, Wolffe,” he greets him cooly.
> 
> “Answers,” Wolffe grits out. “Now.”
> 
> Cody sighs while Rex winces in sympathy, and follows Wolffe into the mess hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, i actually wrote out ten chapters for this fucking fic huh. i'm like... so out of it, lmao. i'm just going to take a little break probably due to this benchmark, to both fully outline the rest of the story and get my stuff together, cus i got an ap test coming up in may and haha.. funny. i already have the next chapter written but i just want to take a small rest from writing too much and get myself caught up. so yeah! don't worry. next chapter may come out in a week rather than half a week.
> 
> mando'a translations at the bottom! the phantom apprentice murdered me in cold blood.

Rex, unfortunately, does not buy him a casket.

On the night that they had departed from Saleucami and their return to Coruscant, the Jedi Council had scheduled a meeting at the Jedi Temple right after dinner. General Kenobi had been notified of the meeting while he had been briefing Generals Windu and Yoda on their success in rescuing Master Eeth Koth and failure in capturing Grievous. Obi-Wan had reported to him all of the details. The meeting, like most Jedi Council meetings, was mandatory for General Kenobi to attend.

The meeting, unlike most Jedi Council meetings, was mandatory for Commander Cody to attend it alongside him.

When Obi-Wan had borne upon the news of his expected presence at the meeting scheduled later that night, Cody was one step away from opening up the bay doors and throwing himself out into the streaks of their hyperspace lane. It did not help when General Kenobi had given him a sheepish smile, nor when he had worded a string of apologies upon the sight of Commander Cody screaming internally and resisting the urge to strangle his general with bare fists. He’s sure nothing could aid the spearing migraine that pounds against his head in dread for the new few hours of his life.

It  _ certainly _ didn’t help that the word of his antics back on Saleucami spread around as a wildfire. This time not just on him wielding a lightsaber — this time on him wielding a completely different lightsaber of a unique color against a four-armed mechanical Jedi Killer whilst also screaming directly at his general’s face. A few of the stories that circulated around were pretty accurate despite how wild they were, such as his trick with the speeder and the dogpile ( which he’s glad that no one believed because, frankly, he’s pretty sure he was out of it when he did that ). Others were… well, they were certainly unique. Unique and completely incorrect.

He can deal with the morbid amount of shinies gaping at him. And it’s from his experience with the other vets with him that he’s able to deal with them as well. Their fawning over him even makes him a little fond despite how much it annoyed him. It’s the Jedi Council that he’s afraid of.

It was a known fact around the GAR that Jedi Council meetings were reserved for Jedi and Jedi  _ only _ . Only under certain circumstances would Jedi be permitted within the High Council Chamber, located at the high tower within the Jedi Temple. Cody’s never been in there, only glimpsing it from time to time whenever he dropped Obi-Wan off at a meeting or commed one of his superiors, and from what he can tell it was restricted from nearly every other sentient in the galaxy. He does not even recall a clone being permitted behind its doors. No matter their rank, that place was sacred to the Jedi, and was treated as such. 

And now Cody had to go to it. He’s practically jumping for joy now.

Kenobi tells them that he’ll pick Cody up after dinnertime at the mess hall on base to take him to the Jedi Temple. That leaves him too much time to grovel and brood over his remaining lifespan before Master Yoda beats him to death with his cane. 

Luckily, he’s able to distract himself from the looming terror known as the Jedi Council by taking care of Rex. His  _ vod’ika _ had arrived a few minutes since their call to one another, riding atop the mount the mysterious patrons had given him and nursing a broken arm within a white sling. Cody had immediately booked it across the clearing to get to him, and wrapped Rex in such a tight hug once he had stepped off the mule that he thinks he probably broke more bones in his body but he doesn’t care in the moment. He’s fighting back relieved tears as he brings his brother close to him, much to Rex’s humor. The captain was chuckling lightly.

“Did you miss me?” he had asked Cody. Cody then rips himself from their tight embrace, glaring at Rex with such an intensity that he could scorch holes into his hide. The commander proceeds to verbally berate him as he helps the captain up to the gunship, which takes them up to the fleet above. All the way back from Saleucami, Cody takes care of Rex, shedding the captain’s sling from around his shoulder once it was clear that his arm had fully healed and feeding him their morning rations upon realizing that he did not eat any breakfast yet. He stuck by his side the entirety of the trip back to Coruscant.

Rex had grumbled in distaste from how much Cody fussed over him, but if the older had to deal with Rex’s overprotective streak after his incident on the Tiika Moon, Rex could handle a couple of minutes of him smothering him to death. Besides, Rex’s state gave him enough responsibility to take his mind off the looming meeting that grows closer as time ticks past.

After they arrive back to Coruscant half an hour later, the day passes much too quickly for Cody’s taste. He makes sure Rex is alright on his own ( which earns him more grumbling from the younger ) before he retires to his quarters. He cleans the soot off his armor before lying down on his bed in his blacks, taking a small nap from the exhaustion he had accumulated the entire trip. When he awakens, he lays there in his own dread, fumbling with Iuya’s lightsaber around his naked fingers.

The warm metal soothes the aching pain in his head and chest, the radiating warmth coursing through him like blood. It’s as if she’s in this very room with him, smiling at him and making him forget of the anxiety tumbling within his gut. He glances at his reflection in the gleaming metal, shifting across its surface. It quiets any regret and guilt in his heart.

He’s worried about the Council. He can’t have them take her lightsaber away from him. He’d be alright if they took his books rented from the Archives, or took his armor in the dead of night — hell, they could demote him and it still would be infinitely better. But if they took this blade, his last physical remembrance of Iuya, he does not think he will ever recover from the loss. It would be the equivalent of killing him. This  _ jetii’kad _ was the only thing that kept him steady in his pursuit of vengeance, reminding him of the  _ vode _ he had lost. He absolutely  _ refuses  _ for them to take it away from him.

Cody pulls himself from his thoughts when he stares at the chronometer on the drawer by his bedside. Almost dinnertime. After dinnertime, Obi-Wan would arrive to bring him to face the Council’s wrath. He really wishes Rex had bought him that casket.

On the matter of Rex, Cody hears a voice through the door. “Cody!” Rex shouts at him through the durasteel, followed by a series of knocks. “ _ Vod!  _ Wake up and get moving, it’s dinner time!”

Cody rolls his eyes, placing his lightsaber on the nightstand by his head before hauling himself from the comfort of the sheets, heading over to his armory to grab his freshly-cleaned armor. He takes his sweet time, both because he’s still groggy from his long nap and he wants to be the bane of Rex’s whole existence.

“C’mon!” the younger groans through the door. “Take any longer and I’ll make you do push-ups.”

“Alright, alright, calm your  _ shebs _ .” Cody fastens his boots around his calves, completing his  _ beskar’gam _ and walking over to the door. “You know I outrank you right? I’m the one who should be making you do push-ups. Also you whine more than Fox did back when we were  _ ade _ .”

Rex scoffs at him. “You’re bluffing. No one whines as much as he did back then.”

“You’d be surprised,  _ vod’ika _ ,” he tells Rex with a teasing eyebrow, “just how whiny you can get.”

“Shut up.” Rex punches him square in the arm, causing Cody to fight back a satisfactory smirk as he steps out the room. The door shuts behind him as Rex places his arms on his hips in a grumpy manner. “Now hurry it up. Wolffe told me to get you down there as fast as possible. And neither of us don’t want to be on the other end of his boot.”

Cody huffs a laugh. Perhaps Rex was poking fun at him again. “Lead the way, Captain.”

They make their way down to the mess hall, turning corridor by corridor between the waves of troopers swarming the barracks. All of them stared at the duo, gaping and whispering of the commander who kept his head forward and at attention. He knew that if he so much as gave them a passing glance, no doubt they would be crowding around him at all sides, begging for him to entail his side on the story of what had occurred that night on Saleucami. He keeps his hands folded and gaze straight while Rex acted as his bodyguard, glaring daggers at anyone that dared try to approach Cody. It’s appreciated, though he believes that he should be the one protecting Rex after his accident on Saleucami. There was something different about the captain. More secluded, still as quiet of the mysterious farmers he had encountered on the planet’s surface. Cody tries to place a finger on it — he knows Rex is keeping something from him — but he’s a little more occupied at the moment. 

“So,” Rex begins right after a shiny turns tail when the captain gives him a passing glance. ‘There’s a Council Meeting tonight. General Skywalker’s off on an errand for the rest of the night and, since General Kenobi is going to the meeting, you think you’re up for a game of holochess?”

Cody wants to know just how Rex manages to ask the wrong questions at the exact right moment. He offers Rex an apologetic grimace. “Sorry, can’t make it.”

“Can’t make it?” Rex repeats in a questioning tone. His signature scowl deepens on his facade. “You’re not going to be training tonight and canceling plans like how you did with Wolffe’s sabacc game, right?”

When Commander Cody had told Rex he would tell him everything on the flight back to Coruscant, he hadn’t been lying. Rex had held him in a figurative gunpoint to tell him everything that he was doing the past week; and because Cody knew that the minute word got out of what he had done Rex would want to hear, and because he felt bad for keeping secrets from his  _ vod’ika _ , he told him everything. From going with Barriss Offee to the Jedi Archives and training himself in his private training room. He told him what had happened down at Saleucami as well, leaving out the small and needless info of him knocking Kenobi upside the head.

He felt a twinge of guilt when he saw a flash of betrayal on Rex’s visage after he was done. Luckily, Rex knew why he kept it from everyone. He understood Cody’s feelings and why he was so intent on killing Grievous. Yet the guilt eats at him. The small secret was not enough to fracture their bond, the closest companionship he could ever have, but the way Rex looked displeased at the circumstances caused his stomach to churn.

“What?” Cody voices. “No, of course not.”

“Okay, then  _ why _ ?”

Rex inspects him, trying to get a read on his  _ ori’vod _ . He was no Fox or Wolffe where he could immediately sniff out lies in a heartbeat, but he was nonetheless a damn good lie detector.  _ Wasn’t good at lying though _ , Cody muses internally. Rex was  _ dush _ when it came to lying.

Figuring that no excuse he could make would get the younger off his back, Cody sighs in defeat. “General Kenobi told me it was mandatory for me to come along with him.”

“Why?” Rex asks. “As a bodyguard?”

“No,” Cody shakes his head. “Actually, they want to talk to me directly.”

It takes a few moments for that to set in Rex before his  _ ad’ika _ ’s eyes widen, staring at Cody with disbelief. “What?”

“Might as well say that it has been a pleasure with you,” Cody tells him with honesty as they round a corner. “If I don’t come back to breakfast tomorrow and you don’t hear from me, you’ll know why.”

“But… why?” Rex is no less confused. “Why do they want to talk to you?”

Cody stares at him, giving him his best _I’ve been training illegally with a lightsaber to kill dozens of battle droids and fight off a four-armed cyborg with respiratory issues and_ that’s _the question you ask me_ look. Rex grimaces in sympathy.

“Okay, wrong question. But why haven’t they organized a meeting with you sooner?”

Cody shrugs. He had recognized before that the Jedi Council, much less the Republic, has been strangely quiet on his past experiences with a lightsaber. He supposed that it was because all those times had been General Kenobi’s fault that he ended up with one in the first place, and all those times were merely out of self-defense. Now that he’s changed up the routine, it wasn’t a surprise that they wanted to make him talk.

“All I know is that they want me there, that’s it. I’ll let you know the details. If I survive.”

“If.” Rex repeats. Worry was radiating on his demeanor. Cody didn’t want him to worry, at least for his sake, as his baby brother had already suffered enough from his time on Saleucami. As a means of snapping the captain from a growing bad mood, he lightly clinks the backs of their hands together. To that, the other softens.

They finally arrive at the mess hall when Cody and Rex are halted by a large body at the door, blocking their entrance into the large room. Wolffe, all crossed arms and steely glares, looming over them despite being only a single inch taller than them. He’s giving Cody a begrudged expression. Rex freezes while Cody stares back at his  _ ori’vod _ , upholding the best poker face he could muster. “Hey, Wolffe,” he greets him cooly.

“Answers,” Wolffe grits out. “Now.”

Cody sighs while Rex winces in sympathy, and follows Wolffe into the mess hall.

  
  


General Kenobi arrives at the mess hall just as Cody finishes up the ration square on his tray. He had been forced to explain everything that had happened since he had awoken from his coma to Rex, Wolffe, and Bly who was currently on leave. Followed by Wolffe scolding Cody for lying to him about Sabacc Night. Followed by Cody cooly explaining that he didn’t lie, and Wolffe hadn’t been asking the right questions. Followed by Cody and Wolffe giving each other death stares from across the table while Rex and Bly sat there awkwardly.

Fortunately Wolffe understood why he kept his secret despite his deep hurt of not being told sooner, to which Cody felt another twinge of guilt from. Though Wolffe had been begrudgingly impressed that Cody chewed out Kenobi like that and held his own against Grievous.

( “You didn’t seriously punch Grievous in the face though, did you?”

Cody doesn’t answer.

“ _ Cod’ika _ .” He can hear the distress in Wolffe’s voice. )

Unfortunately, their time together was cut short when Cody glimpses at the entrance to the mess hall, where he catches sight of an auburn-headed  _ Jetii _ entering the room. General Kenobi takes a look around the room before landing on Cody, giving him a small smile and wave. Cody holds up a  _ wait _ signal before turning to his brethren. “Got to go. Council Meeting. I’m expecting a casket when I return, Rex.”

“I’m not going to buy you a casket.”

“Good luck,  _ ori’vod _ .” Bly tells him with a small smile. He was the quietest among the group, moreso within their batch. Unlike his twin Fox, known for lacking the genes for keeping out of other people’s business and shutting the hell up, he was a lot more thoughtful and only spoke whenever necessary. His smile is enough to ease Cody’s anxiety.

“Yeah, don’t worry, I’m sure General Plo will go easy on you,” Wolffe grunts. “He’s got a soft spot for you. And I reckon that you’ll be the one putting the Council in a casket.”

Cody rolls his eyes at his brother’s joke, but nonetheless stands up to give them a farewell, heading over to meet General Kenobi down at the entrance of the mess hall. The  _ Jetii _ gives him a curious eyebrow. “Are you ready?”

“Of course, sir.” He’s really not.

“Good. Meet me outside. And grab your lightsaber as well. I have a feeling the Council will want to see it.”

They take Obi-Wan’s personal speeder to the Jedi Temple, fresh wind against Cody’s barren face as they wind through the titanic skyscrapers jutting from the levels of Coruscant, draped in marigold. Cody holds onto his Jedi’s waist to keep himself from toppling from the speeder. He blinks the tears that gather in his eyes from the wind as the Jedi Temple comes into view, the ziggurat as radiant as the sun. He chooses to ignore his growing anxiety when he sees it, opting to admire the crisp warm air and the chatter down at the markets below.

They park the speeder on the hangar before walking across the stretch of walkway, entering the busy Jedi Temple. In the hall were several younglings playing with one another, laughing and giggling as they spent their free time loosening up after their training. They bow to General Kenobi in respect before their eyes land at Cody, clearly recognizing him, eyes boggling out their heads as he passes. Cody can’t help but give them a teasing smile back, finding a fondness in their awe with him.

They pass a few more Jedi who ogle at Cody before they make it to the staircase leading up to the High Council Tower, a spire located at the center of the Temple. They climb up the flight of steps and arrive at a section of hallway, upon where the Jedi Council Chamber resided at the end. They reach it, and Cody is taunted by the elaborate design on the shut white doors of the chamber.

“Stay here,” Obi-Wan instructs him. “I will call you inside once when you are called upon.”

Cody nods. “Yes, sir.”

Obi-Wan seems to sense his distress, and gives him a sympathetic smile. “At ease, Commander. No harm will come to you, I promise.

The Jedi Master opens the doors with a wave of the hand and enters the room, letting Cody take a glimpse at the circle of chairs whereupon seats the other Council members, who glance at Obi-Wan when he makes his way inside. The doors shut, and Cody’s left alone in the hall outside.

It’s an eternity as he waits for General Kenobi, fondling with Iuya’s lightsaber that he had grabbed from his dormitory to ease his dread. He leans against the wall as he waits for those doors to open once more — clasping his gauntlet, running his hand over the lightsaber, digs his feet into the carpet, hums beneath his breath. He sighs around twenty times. But no matter how the fear grasps at him, he waits. Waits for what felt like hours.

Then, the doors open once more to the sight of General Kenobi. He doesn’t speak, only giving him a nod and a gesture to follow him. Cody steels the rapid beating of his heart and enters the High Council Chamber.

It is a circular room with a window overlooking the vibrant city below, swarming with vehicle traffic. The  _ mesh’la _ sky beheld a sun in the form of orange ripples against the violet of night, black billowing clouds drifting lazily across the glow. It’s hard not to stare at the scenery. The ships and shuttles fly through the buzzing commute of Coruscant, and the light of the setting sun outside basks the room in a gracious orchid. It’s even harder not to stare at the people seated in their velvet cushions, craning their necks in interest to face him.

A few seats are empty of their Jedi, currently upheld in their respective campaigns. The forms of Shaak Ti, Kit Fisto, and Depa Billaba were of a shifting blue hologram. Other than them, the majority of the Jedi Council was present. Plo Koon, Saesee Tiin, Adi Gallia, Eeth Koth, Ki-Adi Mundi, along with others that he could not name, all of them facing towards him. At the pinnacle of the circle of  _ Jetiise _ was Master Yoda, with Mace Windu by his side. Obi-Wan leaves Cody’s side with a light pat on the back before returning to his own seat. Cody takes a stand at the center of the painted crimson sun on the ivory floor. The room is silent.

“Commander Cody,” Mace Windu greets him, commencing the meeting once more. “It is an honor to have you here with us today.”

Cody blinks at him, having expected him to get right down to the interrogation, before he recovers quickly. “Thank you, Master Windu. The honor is mine.”

_ “Now down to business,” _ Shaak Ti’s velvet and tranquil voice breaks through in a static manner, folding her hands as she regards Commander Cody with a respectful gaze.  _ “It has been acknowledged in General Kenobi’s report to the Council that you have used a lightsaber in combat. Is this true?” _

“Yes, General,” Cody responds on beat.

“Master Kenobi told us that you had saved his life numerous times,” Plo Koon says. Though his facial features greatly differed from most other species, his deep voice held a tone that Cody could only pinpoint as admiration. “And that you have saved many of your men from certain peril by wielding it. Your efforts are honorable.”

_ “I agree,” _ Shaak Ti confers. She smiles at him with so much softness that warmth flows through Cody from the sight.  _ “What you did for your men was very admirable. Master Kenobi is lucky to have a commander like you at his side, to take care of your men… and keep him out of trouble.” _

“Hey,” Kenobi scoffs.

Cody’s lips twitch into a hesitant smile. Either from Masters Koon and Ti’s kindness, or from Kenobi’s offended demeanor. “I appreciate the kindness, sir.”

“But that is not all that we are meant to discuss,” a Grun Jedi Master voices. Unlike the kind expressions that Ti and Koon upheld, he regarded Cody with clear distaste. The commander, in turn, already despises him.

“Master Krof is correct,” Master Tiin voices, equally as troubled by Cody’s presence here in their chamber. “This case is peculiar. In the past, we had overlooked you using a lightsaber in the past, as it belonged to your general and you used it as a means of self-defense. But from what we have heard… the lightsaber you had used on your last mission is  _ not _ General Kenobi’s. Is this also true?”

He does not like the way the two men regard him, but makes no comment. “Yes.”

Mace Windu leans forward in curiosity, and Cody can see that he is observing the lightsaber that dangles free against his hip. “May we see it?”

Cody hesitates for a brief moment before nodding, reaching down to unclip the lightsaber that hangs from his belt. He ignites the blade. It plunges the room in a shine of  _ ve’vut _ , dousing the faces of the  _ Jetiise _ as they lean forward in their seats in interest. In contrast, Mace Windu’s face is unreadable. Cody thinks he glimpses a brief flicker of pain in the man’s dark irises, the tenseness in his body like he’s holding back a cry with every muscle in his body. Depa Billaba, noticing Windu’s change in demeanor as well, turns her gaze towards him with a concerned frown.

_ “Master?” _ she calls. _ “You look troubled.” _

_ “Have you seen this lightsaber before?” _ Kit Fisto questions further.

Mace Windu ponders over the sight of the blade with a fist clasped to his mouth in thought. “Yes,” he finally answers when their curious gazes settle on the Order’s Champion. “That lightsaber belonged to my former Padawan, Iuya Mabeti. She died the night of the Tiika Moon Raid.”

“Your Padawan’s?” Master Krof scowls in horror. “Master, forgive my knowledge, but when a Padawan dies, it is custom for their lightsaber to be given to their Jedi Mentor. How could a clone gain possession of a weapon such as this? It’s insulting.”

The way the man said  _ clone _ — like he was but a mutt to an owner, a disobedient hound groomed to serve — and the accusation of himself caused his grip to tighten around the lightsaber. He fights down the urge to impale the  _ shabuir _ with his blade, instead deactivating it and letting his hand fall to his side. He regards the Council with a calm yet cold expression. “Actually, Master Windu allowed me to keep it.”

He would have taken humor in the way that the Council Members’ heads turn towards the said man, their faces pulled into ranges of astonishment to horrification. Mace Windu, fortunately, does not take offense from Cody’s pointed finger — in fact, he’s almost amused that Cody would play that dirty. “True is this, Master Windu?” Yoda asks his fellow  _ Jetii _ . Windu nods in affirmation.

“Iuya had given it to the commander as a final wish before she died,” Master Windu explained. “Out of respect, I allowed him to keep it.”

“You let the weapon of your own Padawan be trusted with this man?” Master Krof gapes.

“Commander Cody,” Depa Billaba asks him with a kind and curious tone. “How long have you had this lightsaber?”

“Around a week,” Cody answers. “I had been training with it after I had been discharged from the medcenter.”

Ki-Adi Mundi raises an eyebrow at the commander in confusion. “In secret?” When Cody nods, the Cerean turns to Obi-Wan with an even more puzzled expression. “Have you not known of this before? Or perhaps tried to stop him?”

Kenobi gives Mundi a sheepish glance. “You’d be surprised at how well the commander keeps his secrets.”

“Were you training with any aid?” Plo Koon asks Cody.

“I only had the books I had checked out from the Archives. You can ask Master Nu about it, she was the one who lent me them. I’ve been using them to train myself.”

“Which is how he had improved greatly by the time he had gone against General Grievous,” Kenobi adds. 

_ “That is impressive,”  _ Kit Fisto muses,  _ “how you managed to train yourself with no previous experience before.” _

“Unfortunately,” Master Tiin voices, “that is also illegal.”

“A lightsaber is meant to be the weapon of a Jedi,” Ki-Adi Mundi explains with a proper tone. “No Republic soldier is permitted to use any weapon other than a blaster unless under specific circumstances. When we had heard of what had happened on Dakra and Baltor, we were only a little wary. Now with this chain of events, we do not know what to do.”

Yoda looks up from his lap to gaze at Cody. “Kept secrets from your general, you did. Orders, you went against. A threat, that may be.”

Cody looks around the room, observing each of the Council Members’ faces that nod in agreement with Master Yoda’s statement. It takes a few moments for him to decipher the cryptics words, along with their strange expressions, before the realization kicks in. “You think I’m dangerous.”

“If I may interject,” Obi-Wan Kenobi speaks up with a baffled expression, “the commander has saved my life countless times. He’s risked his own life even more so for his men. If there’s anything he cannot be, it’s being a threat.”

“Master Kenobi, do you forget that the commander not only went against your better judgment but also disrespected you in front of several witnesses?” Master Krof sneers. “We have heard word of what happened. He  _ yelled _ at you in front of an audience.”

“And I deserved it,” Obi-Wan stresses. “I risked the lives of many men in my pursuit of General Grievous, and the commander had the right to be angry at me. What he did was completely justified.”

“What he did was disrespectful and  _ humiliating _ ,” Master Krof retorts. “Because of what he did, other clones may get the idea that they do not need to be respectful towards their Jedi. Next thing we know they’ll be yelling at us to do  _ their _ work!”

_ “Master Krof,” _ Shaak Ti grits at him, maternal face pulled into a disapproving frown.  _ “The clones will never do such a thing. They are loyal and kind, such as Commander Cody here. If he would yell at anyone, it would be for good reason.” _

“I have to agree with Master Krof,” Master Tiin voices. “No matter what he did, it is still dangerous for anyone other than a Jedi to wield a lightsaber. We do not even have the approval of the Chancellor to allow him to keep it.”

“But he is no danger to the Republic!” Kenobi argues.

“Watch your tone, Kenobi,” Master Krof snaps. “You are acting rather biased. I might even say that you have grown…  _ attached _ to your commander. Perhaps we should not have had you speak on behalf of him. What do you suggest, Master Kenobi? That we give all the clones lightsabers, just to see what happens, putting our entire Order at risk? It should be final that this man must be held accountable for both his behavior and actions.”

“You’re not listening to me! Master Koth” — Kenobi turns to the Zabrak _ Jetii _ — “surely you do not see Commander Cody as a threat? He was the one who made it possible for Anakin and Adi to come rescue you! He risked his life so that you would be brought to safety.”

Eeth Koth was about to respond when Master Krof cuts him off. “Trying to sway opinions now, Kenobi? This man is a  _ threat _ . The Chancellor would not stand for this, seeing how much he’s persuaded you to trust him.”

Obi-Wan fixates a bewildered look at the  _ shabuir _ . “Excuse me?”

Suddenly the Council Room erupts into a fit of arguments, a few attempting to maintain order or sit back and watch the chaos unfold. Masters Yoda and Windu were too deep in thought to participate. Depa Billaba, Shaak Ti, and Plo Koon took Kenobi’s side of the argument. Masters Tiin, Krof, and Mundi took the other, advocating that Cody must be punished for keeping secrets and posing a threat to their power. The entire time, Cody stands there, his fist clasped around the hilt of Iuya’s lightsaber as a means of solace, but it cannot block out the words that fly back his head. The  _ Jetiise _ flying back and forth with squabbles and retorts, referring to him as if he were not a commander but a unique specimen on the waiting list for incarceration.

He cannot stop the anger at being treated like some animal along with the inability to speak up for himself from boiling within him, the fires of his anger growing and growing until both his hands curl into fists. He shuts his eyes, knowing what he is about to do is by far the stupidest thing he’ll ever do, but it’s the only proper thing to do to get these  _ di’kute _ to settle down. So he takes in a deep breath and—

**“All of you, quiet!”**

Cody’s bellow echoes around the room, ringing off the transparisteel from the viewport of the room. The Council falls silent, staring at him in shock as he cuts off their arguments; even Master Krof is rendered quiet, too stunned to even berate Cody for blatant disrespect. When Cody has all eyes on him, he ignores the rapid pulses of his heart as he stands tall.

“Permission to speak freely, sirs?” he asks them all.

It takes a few moments for his request to settle. Plo Koon is the first to answer the call, nodding in affirmation. “It would be good to allow the commander to voice his own opinion on the matter.”

Depa Billaba nods.  _ “He hasn’t had a chance to speak yet. It’s only fair for him to do so on his own terms.” _

“Go ahead, Commander,” Mace Windu permits, looking up to Cody from his previous focus on the ground.

“Yes,” Master Krof agrees with a steely look. “Try to convince us why you are no threat to us than you already are.”

Commander Cody is silent for a moment. He honestly didn’t expect them to actually give him permission to speak on his own behalf. He did not like how their eyes bore holes into his skin, how they stared at him with enough expectancy to make his skin crawl. Not the awed eyes of shinies but the judgmental glares of a natborn. It’s only when he meets Obi-Wan’s soft gaze, gently nodding to him to speak on his own, that he is capable of finding his voice.

“Well?” Master Tiin asks when the room is still silent.

Cody takes in a deep breath. Here goes nothing. “Do you know what happened on the satellite above the Tiika Moon?”

Master Krof opens his mouth to answer with a scoff when Cody’s head reels towards him, leveling a deadly glare at him. It shuts him up right on the spot.

“There were around fifty of us clones. Fifty plus the rookies deployed up on the satellite. Most of them I knew all my life, others I had encountered from past missions during the war. We were close, as brothers, as friends. But the one I cared deeply about was Iuya, General Windu’s Padawan. She was… kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved unconditionally, cheered the men up after a rough day. She and my  _ vode _ were everything to me, and I took care of all of them. That was when Grievous attacked.”

He takes in a shuddering exhale, keeping his composure despite how every cell in his body screamed in pure agony. “I had to watch as that man killed my brethren left and right, as he slaughtered us until we were downed by a half. I had been forced to hide while that  _ monster _ picked us off one by one until only a few of us remained. I… I had to stand there and watch as he killed Iuya. Right in front of my eyes.”

That seems to cut off any further response attempted by the  _ Jetiise _ around him, stuck in agape shock at him though they have heard the story before. Plo Koon looks as if he were in physical pain. Shaak Ti looks as if she is close to bursting into tears. But Cody keeps going.

“When Iuya died, she gave me her lightsaber. She… she told me she wanted me to have it, so I can protect my brethren. But I failed. No one else survived that night. Wooley, my little brother — he’s in a coma down at the medcenter with no date for when he will wake up. And Grievous…” — his grip tightens on his  _ jetii’kad _ — “… he’s still out there, out there because I failed to stop him, killing us with no remorse.”

He brings up Iuya’s lightsaber, his reflection in the golden metal revealing his eyes. Shrouded in grief and rage. “What happened that night made me realize what I needed to do. I can’t live with knowing that Grievous is still out there because of me, that he’s slaughtering more and more soldiers every day. It made me realize just how many of my men die and how many more I can save. You all might be wary of me, think I am a threat to the Republic. But we both want the same thing — we both want to end this war. And I will not rest until I have killed that  _ bastard _ with my bare hands.  **He may have killed dozens of your Jedi, but he has murdered** **_thousands_ ** **of my brothers.** ”

He lets his words sink in with the Jedi gathered around. They are all frozen in their seats, staring at him. Even Master Yoda is appalled. Cody continues.

“All I am asking,” Cody states, “is for you to allow me to keep this weapon and use it. Ask the Chancellor if you have to. You are going to need all the help you can get if you want this war to end.”

He finishes his speech with labored breaths from just how loud he had projected his voice, heart hammering as he loosens his grip on the  _ jetii’kad _ in his grasp. For a few moments, the Council Chamber is quiet.

Then, Mace Windu’s voice is heard. “He’s right.”

“ _ What? _ ” Master Krof sputters after he recovers from his initial shock, reeling on Master Windu with an incredulous stare. “You cannot be serious, Master Windu! Did you not hear what he said? Do you not sense the hatred within him? The danger he poses? He should not even—”

“Master Krof,” Mace Windu interrupts him, his gaze so steely it sends a shiver down the Gran’s spine, “sit down. And as to explain my reasoning, I believe that the commander is the best candidate for such a task. He’s right — we need all the aid we can get in order to end this war, and to defeat General Grievous. He has eluded us for many months. Perhaps, with the commander by our side, his capture could be made possible; and we could greatly decrease the rising death toll. Besides, it would be unwise to punish him for brave acts, and disrespect my former Padawan’s wishes.”

In his last sentence, he looks at Cody with a knowing glance, a small twinge playing at the corners of his lips. It knocks Cody breathless. Of all people, to have General Windu take his side in the argument was enough to shake him. “Thank you, sir.”

“I agree with Master Windu,” Plo Koon’s kind voice resonates. “I have seen the commander in action before. He’s a remarkable strategist and fighter, and he cares for his men deeply. All of the best qualities of a leader. It would only be right to allow him to train.”

“But he is not Force-Sensitive,” Mundi claims, tilting his head with curiosity at Cody.

_ “Neither is General Grievous,” _ Shaak Ti’s soothing voice cuts through the hologram. She smiles at Cody, gentle and maternal.  _ “Master Mundi, you, me, and Aayla have faced Grievous before. The three of us had suffered since with scars down our backs. Commander Cody, however, faced against him three times and survived.” _

“He does present a good foil for Grievous,” Eeth Koth adds, hand placed on his chin in thought. “No other Jedi has fared well against him as Grievous is no Jedi. He is not bound to guidelines like we or the Sith are. Perhaps, if we train the commander, he will be able to counteract him.”

Obi-Wan, who had been beaming sunnily now that the Council Members were joining his side of the discussion, grins at Eeth Koth. “So you  _ do _ believe he is trustworthy?”

“Of course,” Eeth Koth answers. “He is one of the reasons why I am still alive. it is only fit to repay him. And from the way the men describe him, he could be a formidable opponent to Grievous.”

“I agree,” Adi Gallia states.

_ “As do I,” _ Depa Billaba chimes in.

Master Fisto and the others voice their agreement. Master Tiin and Mundi are still a little skeptical of the commander walking free with a saber in hand, but nonetheless nod their heads in agreement. Master Krof does not say anything, disgruntled but making no rebuttals. Mace Windu scans around the group. “So, we are all in agreement? Master Yoda?”

Yoda had been frowning in thought as he placed his clasped palms to his chin, scowling at the floor as he mused over the decision. He makes a weird guttural noise that sounds of skepticism. “Bad feeling about this, I have. Goes against our morality, this action poses.”

“Master Yoda,” Kenobi pleads. “Commander Cody is right. If we are going to finish this war, isn’t it time we change our tactics a little?”

Yoda’s frown deepens. “Maybe so. But afraid I am, of where our choices lead.”

“Master Yoda.” Cody figures that the only one in the room that could convince Yoda was himself. He steps forward and regards the Jedi Master with a respectful bow of his head. “I promise that I do this for the good of the Republic and the good of my men. I’m not a Jedi, but if there is anyone that is more bent on going against Grievous, it will be me.”

Yoda meditates in silence for a few more moments before he grumbles loudly in defeat. “Fine! But training, you must have from a Jedi. To wield a lightsaber, is no easy task.”

Obi-Wan takes that as an opportunity to speed. “I volunteer to take up Commander Cody as my apprentice, as he is my commander after all.” His general gives Cody a playful. “That  _ is _ if the commander chooses so.”

Cody bites back a laugh. “I accept, General Kenobi. I’m tired of having to read the same books from the Archives anyway.”

“Then it is settled,” Mace Windu concludes. “We will speak with the Supreme Chancellor on this matter. All in favor of this decision?”

His stern voice leaves no room for debate, but all of the  _ Jetiise _ ’s heads nod in agreement.

“Good. Meeting dismissed.”

The forms of Depa Billaba, Kit Fisto, and Shaak Ti dissipate into nothing, leaving their cushioned seats vacant. Cody earns several respectful nods towards him as the other Jedi file out of the room, even a few begrudging nods from Masters Tiin, Mundi, and Yoda. Master Krof blatantly ignores him. Lucky for him, Cody doesn’t care. He lets out a relieved exhale as he clips Iuya’s saber back to his belt. That had not gone as he had feared it would go, but he can’t say he isn’t euphoric of the events.

General Kenobi approaches him with Plo Koon at his side. His general grins with so much mirth that it nearly blinds the commander. “Well, that went surprisingly well.”

Cody raises an eyebrow at him. “Was there any doubt?”

“Supposedly,” Obi-Wan chuckles.

“You have a knack for words, Commander,” Plo Koon compliments him, making Cody’s chest swell. “You managed to persuade even Master Yoda. That is certainly a feat. I will be looking forward to when I have the chance to see you in action one day.”

“Thank you, sir,” Cody humbly responds. He watches Plo Koon leave; Obi-Wan takes his rightful place by Cody’s side.

“So, my dear, Padawan,” General Kenobi begins with a grin, “you suppose it is time we get some much-needed rest?”

Cody reels on him, crossing his arms with an unimpressed glare. “Okay, you are not calling me that.”

“It is only fit,” Obi-Wan retorts.

“It really isn’t.”

“Alright, so what do you suggest, my apprentice? Youngling? Youngling apprentice?”

Cody shoves the general lightly, to which the man guffaws at. “Just Cody or Commander.  _ Nothing else _ .”

Obi-Wan still has that dumb grin on his face. “Whatever you say… my apprentice.” Cody is about to knee him in the stomach when a voice calls out to him from behind.

“Commander.”

Cody swivels around to come face-to-face with Master Windu, who had risen from his chair to make his way over to them by the entrance. “May I have a private word with you?”

The commander blinks. “Uh, sure, General.” He gives Obi-Wan a pointed look, the receiver of which looked just as confused as Cody feels but nonetheless complied with the man’s wishes. He leaves the room to reside down the hall while Cody turns back to face the High General. “Is something wrong?”

“Do not worry yourself, Commander,” Mace Windu assures him. “I just wanted to commend you for your actions on Saleucami. What you had done out there is beyond anything I have ever heard of. I am glad that I had entrusted the care of my apprentice’s saber to you.” 

“Oh, uh…” He was not expecting that. “Thank you, Master Windu.”

“That being said…” It is here that Mace Windu seems to carefully construct the words to say, though this process only appears for a brief second before he regains his wording. “You are not obligated to stick to one instructor for your training. I am sure Plo Koon and Shaak Ti would be very willing to teach you a few things. And… if you ever so desire, my door is always open.”

It takes Cody a moment to process the information. Was… was Mace Windu offering to train him?

_ The dark ink forms people across its pages, aggressive and ruthless as they strike at one another. Sabers dancing in a duel of death, gritting teeth and violent jabs, dirty tricks and violet blades, cutting through Jango’s head with not even a scream— _

He gives General Windu a polite nod. “That’s… good to know sir.”

Mace Windu smiles a little — a small tilt at the corners of his lips that catches Cody off-guard. The  _ Jetii _ looks off to the side, seeing Master Kenobi who was peeking at from across the hall, attempting to eavesdrop on their conversation. General Windu does something of a snort. “I will not keep you waiting any longer, Commander. You’ve had a long day. Oh. And thank you. For knocking some sense into Obi-Wan.”

Cody shrugs off-handedly. “It’s what I do best.”

He leaves General Windu in the High Council Chamber and follows General Kenobi to the staircase.

  
  


_ Iuya liked to sing. _

_ She used to sing a lot. When she skipped to and fro down the Tiika Moon Base like a sprite in the wind, when she helped Nikita clean up the dishes down at the kitchen in the mess hall, when she and Cody worked on the reactor for their morning quota. She liked singing, she had told him once, with a welding mask over her head as she blowtorched a piece of metal that the commander had been holding. Since she was a youngling, she’s always been singing. _

_ Cody doesn’t know how exactly to describe her voice. Words fail him whenever she does so much as open her mouth. It was a soft melody, kind and sweet, honeycomb and buttercups that flutter in the wind of a humid planet. Her voice was like crystalline waterfalls over a clear pool, like the buzz of a rainforest calling to the skies above; it was like the twinkling stars in the sky, that made small chimes that mirrored her own honey tone. Whenever she sings, Cody can’t speak. He just listens to her, and bites back a smile. _

_ “Do you like singing, Commander?” Iuya asks on the fifth day since she had arrived on the base. She was laying her head in his lap, now more comfortable with him than ever before, allowing the commander to run his gloved fingers over her rose pink lekku. Cody’s caught off guard by her question. _

_ “What do you mean?” he questions her. _

_ Iuya shifts in his lap, turning her amber-sweet gaze to him. “I hear you hum beneath your breath sometimes,” she admits, face flushing dark as she reveals her secret. “You have a nice voice.” _

_ Cody doesn’t know whether to be astonished or aghast. “You’re able to hear me?” _

_ Iuya shrugs. “Force amplifies the sound. Let’s me hear things louder than they usually are. But… you do like singing, don’t you?” _

_ The commander stares at her, unknowing of how to answer her question without giving too much of himself away. He didn’t like people finding out about himself. About his secrets, about his scar, about anything. To him, it was like stripping naked in front of a bunch of civvies, letting the world see just how fucked up he could be. He  _ **_hates_ ** _ vulnerability. Hates it with his entire soul. But when he sees Iuya’s curious gaze, focused on him and nothing else, the tension fades. He feels… he feels as if that with her, she wouldn’t judge. She’s not like the cadets on Kamino who grow up too fast, or the shinies out and around who are not quite young but not quite old either. She’s younger. She’s different. _

_ So Cody leans in close, scanning the reactor room to make sure no one was there to hear what he had to say. “Alright, I’m gonna tell you, but you have to keep it a secret. You cannot tell anyone — and I mean  _ **_anyone_ ** _ — about this. You hear me?” To make sure she understands his point, he pokes her face playfully, making the Padawan giggle. _

_ “I get it, I get it,” his  _ **_ad’ika_ ** _ laughs. “I promise! I won’t tell anyone.” _

_ Cody scans her face, and glimpsing no traitorship in her features, he nods. “Alright, I like singing. Been singing since I was a kid, just like you. No one knows I do it, not even Rex.” _

_ “Captain Rex?” _

_ “ _ **_Especially_ ** _ not Captain Rex,” Cody confirms. “He and the others would probably laugh their heads off if they ever found out.” _

_ “I don’t think they will,” Iuya pouts in disagreement. “They’re your brothers! And you have a nice voice, honest.” _

_ Cody snorts, ignoring the way his chest warms at the compliment. “Thanks, kiddo.” _

_ “So, what do you sing?” she asks him. “Ballads? March songs? You seem to speak another language whenever you do it. It’s Mando’a, isn’t it? I’ve heard the clones speaking it before. Did someone ever teach it to you?” _

_ Cody glances away, pursing his lips together. “Actually… I write my own songs.” _

_ At that, the youngling shoots up from his lap, her eyes bright and starry as they lock onto the commander. “Really? Can you sing one for me?” _

_ “Uh…” Cody sheepishly avoids her gaze, the alarms blaring in his head. “I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of finished ones…” _

_ “Oh please, please!” Iuya pleads, coming close to him in order to clasp her hands together in a prayer, her eyes going wide and baby-like as she pouted out with her bottom lip like a kicked puppy. Cody thinks he dies internally. “Please, just one song! I want to hear it! I promise I won’t say anything, please!” _

_ “Okay, okay,  _ **_Iu’ika_ ** _ , yeesh,” Cody chortles. “You’re a wily one sometimes.” _

_ “Only because I want to hear your voice again.” Iuya grins with satisfaction, infamous tooth gap between her lips. She lays her head back down on Cody’s lap and looks up at him expectantly. “Go on! I want to hear your song!” _

_ Cody looks down at her, her eyes wide with glee and excitement, and feels his heart twist in such a way he thinks he might just faint. Calming his anxiety down — it’s just Iuya, and Iuya keeps her promises, and Iuya is his baby sister — he takes in a deep breath, and begins to sing. _

_ It’s one of his oldest songs. One of the first he finished, right after the first battle of Geonosis, when the body count was high and the morale was at its lowest.  _ **_Cuyan_ ** _ , he had called it. Survivor. Survivor, he sang in the night since the battle, looking up at the white ceiling of his pod bed as he waited for time to end right then and there. Survivor, he sang when his tears were dry, when he no longer had any  _ **_trikar_ ** _ left to waste. Survivor, he sang as the word grew dead with every time it was spoken. Because he was a survivor. And in a war, it’s always hard to be the one who survives. _

_ When he finishes, and his voice no longer echoes across the chamber of the reactor room, he glances down at Iuya. Her face is slack, looking at Cody with so much awe that he can’t help but smile at the sight. “Wow,” she mumbles to open air. “That… that was so cool.” _

_ Cody laughs. “Thank you,  _ **_ad’ika_ ** _.” _

_ Then he frowns. Suddenly, the reactor behind him stops humming its steady tune, going silent as it ceases its vibration along his backside. Suddenly, he feels cold, like a winter chill settling upon the room, making him shiver with disgust. It’s as if there are maggots on his skin. Something crawling beneath his bones, causing him to gag with the stench of something rotten. Something unforgiving. _

_ His eyes dart around the room, searching for the danger. Something is wrong. Something is not right. Where was he? Why is he here? _

_ “Commander,” Iuya calls out to him again. “Are you alright?” _

_ Cody looks back down, about to answer her question, but his lap is empty. The room is empty. There’s not even a room. There is only darkness. Spiraling, pitch-black darkness. Where was he? _

_ He hears a scream from behind him. _

**_Commander! Commander!_ **

_ He whirls around. Nothing but darkness. _

**_Commander, help me! Please! Don’t let me die! Please!_ **

_ “Iuya!” he screams out, but nothing comes out. _

**_Cody! Don’t leave me! Why are you leaving me?_ **

_ “Iuya, I—!” _

_ He freezes. In the darkness, right in front of him. Eyes. Golden eyes. But not Iuya’s warm, benevolent eyes. Not Iuya’s eyes, full of so much tenderness and kindness that it melts through the steel gates of his heart. Not Iuya’s arms that he loves with his entire being. They’re not her eyes. They’re golden, but they’re putrid. Dirtied.  _ **_Kyorla_ ** _. _

_ Something akin to the scorch of a thousand suns pierces his stomach. He thinks he screams. Two voices scream out in agony. But no words come out. _

And Cody wakes up. He thinks he sees a shadow pass overhead, but when he blinks, it’s gone the next second.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ master krof, i'm coming for ur ass
> 
> translations: 
> 
> dush: bad  
> mesh'la: beautiful  
> shabuir: jerk (extreme insult, strong)  
> cuyan: survivor  
> kyorla: rotten


	11. open eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s once the commander brings down Wooley’s breathing to a relatively stable level that the former rookie speaks. “C… Commander…?”
> 
> “It’s me, Wooley,” he whispers. “I’m here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, small break over and... hm...! honestly so pumped to publish the next two chapters, because i have been yearning to write the fight scenes for some time and god, there is so much i want to do. i really need to find a site that actually corrects the grammar on my writing because docs is a motherfucker.
> 
> mando'a translations on the bottom!

The day Cody’s training is set to begin, Wooley wakes up in the medcenter.

Cody had been there before he had awoken. Over the course of the  _ little un _ ’s recovery, Cody had been visiting him every opportunity he had. He stayed overnight for the majority of his visits, relieving the medics of their burden and taking up his own, watching over the former rookie in the case he would awake. Sometimes he slept by his side, other times he stayed up all night long, hoping to Manda that he would be the first to see his baby brother’s eyes fly open. In those hours above his bed, he had taken to reading some novels and the Jedi Archive guides, scrolling down his datapad to occupy himself.

But every time he had visited him in the past, Wooley exhibited no signs of wake. There was no evidence of anomaly in his recovery — rather, he seemed to be doing pretty well — but he never even seen the younger shift or twitch in his sleep. He barely looked as if he were breathing. Whenever Cody asked the medics of his progress, they’d repeat the same mantra that he’ll come back in a few days. They used that answer so frequently Cody didn’t bother asking them anymore after the third visit.

( He wouldn’t admit the fear. The fear that Wooley would never wake up again. Maybe he wouldn’t wake up for months. Years. By the time Cody’s retired from the GAR, if he’s even lives to that time. He knows his anxiety was irrational. They told him Wooley was recovering, and he trusts these medics with his life. But he still prepared for the worst. He couldn’t lose Wooley. If he lost Wooley — his baby brother, his pride and joy, the only other survivor from that dreadful night — he’d never be the same. )

In the first hours of dawn, as he scrolls down the lines of text as he reviews battle tactics for himself, having just awoken to finish his shift over Wooley, he hears rustling. The shifting of sheets right next to him. Cody nearly drops his datapad. His head swivels towards the noise, eyes landing on the boy on the bed, mumbling incoherent words as he thrashed lightly in his  _ nuhoyir _ . A nightmare. Cody’s seen troopers with nightmares before, the ones they never speak of with one another, throwing their heads to the side and screaming like their chests were being ripped open from the inside. Wooley’s thrashes become frantic, his breaths escalating and slamming his head against the pillow again and again.

Cody chucks his datapad onto the nearby table ( thankfully not careless enough to break it ) and goes to sit on the side of the bed, reaching forward as he leans over his  _ vod’ika _ . “Wooley?” he calls softly, attempting to keep his voice steady as he presses a gentle hand on the young trooper’s shoulder. “Wooley. Wooley, it’s me. C’mon.  _ Udesii, udesii. _ ”

His words bring the boy from the depths of unconsciousness. Wooley’s eyes snap open, and a gasp wrenches from his throat, almost like he had been drowning in his sleep. He nearly shoots up from the bed, would have hurt himself if Cody had not been there to keep him still. His honey-brown eyes (  _ eyes that used to be like twin suns in the center of darkness, full of nothing but compassion and excitement, just as jittery as his own movements _ ) were interlaced with terror. A horrific fear that turned his  _ vod’ika _ ’s breathing labored, head darting around the room as he tries to identify the space he wakes up in. He looks scared. So scared.

“Wooley,” Cody whispers to him, begging for him to be listening. Wooley ignores him, eyes frantic in their glances.

“W— where—?” Wooley gasps. “Wh— No! Please don’t! Don’t— don’t kill me, please—!” 

The younger’s eyes fill with tears. Wooley’s never cried before. He used to be so happy, too joyful and energetic to make way for tears. But Cody recognizes the sheen in his eyes, torn beyond comprehension. It’s as if something curb-stomps right on Cody’s heart.

“ _ Wool’ika _ ,” Cody whispers to him once more. He keeps his hands on the younger’s narrow shoulders. “It’s alright,  _ vod’ika _ . It’s alright. Just breathe, just breathe. You’re safe. You’re going to be alright. Shh.” 

The younger ceases his hysterics and tenses under his ministrations, keeping his hands on his shoulders wrapped in the crimson scrubs cadets and patients wore. Wooley’s breath hitches on instinct, muscles tensing before relaxing beneath Cody’s hands. “That’s it,  _ vod’ika _ .” He hums a small tune, risking his vulnerability as a means of soothing the tragedy that was Wooley’s broken soul. “That’s it. Just breathe. There you go. He can’t hurt you anymore. You’re safe.”

It’s once the commander brings down Wooley’s breathing to a relatively stable level that the former rookie speaks. “C… Commander…?”

His voice is scratchy and torn. It lacks the vibrancy that Cody had pinpointed upon it the minute they had met, lively and energetic that he can’t help but love with every fiber of his being. It no longer echoed down the base of Coruscant, could barely be called a whisper with how  _ silent _ it was. It is as if something had torn his voice from his gullet, leaving him choking with no way to breathe. And Cody’s heart wrenches painfully,  _ agonizingly _ . This isn’t Wooley. Or maybe it was, but this was an entirely different aspect of his psyche that made Cody shake.

He reaches up to place his hand on Wooley’s sunken cheek, the rich brown diminished to a dull shade. His face is embedded with thousands of cuts, and his face was sullen despite the nutrients they had pumped into his body since he was decanted from the tank. His dark curls fell over his eyes, glass cracks within the sweet irises. Even the tattoo, inked over his temple beneath his hairline to his cheekbone, appeared faded. A sob tears itself involuntarily from Cody’s throat.

“It’s me, Wooley,” he whispers. “I’m here.”

“Y—” Wooley fumbles for the words, yet he cannot even manage a single word. He gargles like his mouth is filled with acid. The tears that have collected in the ducts of his eyes fall down his face, tear tracks falling from his chin into his lap. “C— I—” He hiccups.

Immediately, Cody pulls the boy into a fearsome hug. Not enough to overwhelm him, but just enough to give the boy the human contact he suspected he needed to ground him back down. Wooley stiffens beneath his touch. Then he melts. Melts into a sobbing mess as his body shakes violently, hiccups and whimpers falling from his mouth as Cody holds him.  _ He’s never cried before _ .  _ No matter how much bloodshed he had ever witnessed Wooley never cried.  _ Cody guides his  _ vod’ika _ ’s head into his neck, the tears staining his own blacks as he holds him tenderly. It isn’t until he does so that he feels something damp on his own cheeks. Tears. The realization makes his arms constrict even tighter around his  _ ad’ika _ . He quickly brushes them away before the young one would notice.

He doesn’t know how much turmoil riles within him. He’s relieved, absolutely ecstatic. Wooley’s alive. He’s awake and alive, breathing and within his arms, just as strong and stubborn as he knew him to be. As he adored him to be. Wooley’s alive and he’s safe, at least in the meantime, and Cody is here for him. Yet he’s terrified. Absolutely horrified. Wooley’s looks… broken.  _ Shuk’la _ . Fragile as he trembles greatly in his embrace, limbs thin as needles and face marred with scars that may never go away. He was quivering so much that he would have shattered into a million pieces if Cody had not been there to keep him intact. Wooley doesn’t look like Wooley anymore. And it hurts like Cody was the one to be slammed into the durasteel floors of the Tiika Satellite Base.

And as always, there was the anger. The writhing, endless anger that grips at Cody’s chest. _No one hurts his baby brother. No one hurts_ ** _any_** _of his brethren._ ** _No one_** **_hurts them when he’s here—_**

He keeps his anger in check. Keeps himself composed even though he’s on the verge of breaking. “Shh,” he comforts Wooley, running his fingers through the bed of curls that were still soft to touch above Wooley’s head. The locks are tangled, yet they’re like silk as he threads his fingers through their gaps. “I’ve got you,  _ vod’ika _ . I’ve got you. Just let it out.”

Cody presses his face into Wooley’s scalp. He can almost smell it. The scent of raspberries and sunflower fields. Diminished, yet still alive. He cradles the younger close. He’ll never let him out of his sight again. Never.

“Are you hungry?” Cody asks him. Wooley’s sobs are still thriving, though eventually he had calmed down just enough to stop hiccuping every two seconds. His hands place themselves onto the younger’s shoulders as he swayed almost in a trance. “It’s breakfast at the mess hall right now. Do you want some?”

Wooley nods in his daze, and it doesn’t aid the knife plunged deep in Cody’s chest, but he carefully shrouds it beneath an attentive face. He sends a message down to Waxer, currently helping the other patients in the facility. He tells him to get him and Wooley some food ( though Cody doubts he’ll eat his own share ) and gets him up to date on the younger’s current state. Once finished, he turns his attention back to his  _ vod’ika _ . He’s staring down at his lap. Unmoving.

“I don’t…” the boy takes in a shuddering inhale. “Doesn’t… Where…?”

Despite the lack of articulation, Cody knows what he’s asking. “Medical bay, Coruscant. You’ve been comatose. They had you in a bacta tank for weeks. I’ve been watching over you after you were decanted.”

Wooley takes in the new information, eyebrows untrimmed furrowing on his facade. “I… I remember.”

“You do?”

“Running… we were trying— trying to run? From… from…” Wooley’s breath hitches. Cody can already see the rising panic on his face. “He… he was killing them all. 89, Watcher. Sprint and Nikita. I couldn’t find Willow… he… he grabbed me by the back. I don’t know what happened. I remember the… the…”

Wooley hands fly to his head as if he’s trying to smash his skull in between his palms to blot out the images burning in his eyes. “ _ He tried to kill me. Fucking kriff, he almost killed me. _ ” Wooley begins to hyperventilate again.

“Hey, hey, don’t do that,” Cody pleads, reaching over to release Wooley’s grip over his brain, keeping them stuck to his lap. He can already see the damages the attack had taken on Wooley.  _ PTSD. _ Cody’s dealt with that. Had been dealing with it for  _ years _ . But he knows how to hide it, how to put up a front and pursue despite how much the panic grasps at him. Wooley doesn’t have that, barely even knows how to manage it when it finally hits. The experience was pure trauma. Wooley doesn’t have the training to cope with it.  _ He’s still a damn rookie. _ “Don’t hurt yourself. It’ll only make things worse.”

“ _ Worse? _ ” Wooley wrenches out. “Everything’s worse. Everything— wait. Where is he? Where’s G… where is he? Where is everyone else? Please. Please don’t tell me—”

“Grievous got away. As for the others…” Cody’s words die in his throat before it makes itself open in the world. But he doesn’t need to speak. Wooley was better at emotions than him. He knew the answer the minute Cody’s voice dies.

“No…” Wooley whispers. When he speaks again, he’s sobbing once more. “No, no, no, no… why?  _ Why? _ ”

Cody tries to answer him. He doesn’t know how he even intended to answer him with. Maybe reason that Wooley’s still alive, that Cody’s going to kill Grievous the next time they meet again. But he can’t. His throat bobs, his stomach churns. All just from the sight of Wooley absolutely  _ devastated _ . Cody doesn’t know how to help him — battle wounds are easier to treat than these things. Cody can’t stitch him back together if he can barely hold the needle for himself.

“I can’t…” Wooley continues to stammer. “No… I can’t… they’re gone.  _ Everyone’s gone _ .”

“I know,” Cody tells him, because what else could he say? “I’m… so sorry, Wooley. I never wanted you to ever experience that. Never.”

“He slammed me into the ground. He sliced Nikita’s chest. He broke Sprint’s neck. He murdered… he murdered Iuya. Willow?”

Cody shakes his head dreadfully. “He got to her too.”

“Oh fuck.” Wooley curls further into himself, eyes snapped open in pure horror, reminiscing the memories though he tried to escape from them. His hands are ripping at the roots of his hair, attempting to tear them from his scalp, but Cody silently reaches over once more to take them off his head. He brings up his thumb to brush away the tears on Wooley’s check, painfully akin to when he had done the same to Iuya. Before she died. Before everything. He lets the younger lean into him, generating warmth to shield him from the stinging cold.

Wooley’s gaze then drifts up to Cody. “What… what about you? How long have you been awake?”

“Around two weeks,” Cody answers. His memories during that time have become muddled and confusing, and he had forgotten just how many days he spent within the medical bay. “I was in the bacta tank for a while, slept for a few days. Woke up here.”

“You… you look tired.”

Cody dismisses him with a shake of the head. “I’m alright, Wooley. Honest. What matters right now is you.

“But—”

“How do you feel right now?”

Wooley purses his lips together, both at Cody’s insistence on his well-being and measuring just how he felt. “Just… I dunno. Tired, I guess. Everything hurts.”

Cody nods. “Okay, that’s normal. You’ll be out of it for a few days. Maybe less than me with all the sleep you got. Just hang in there, okay? I think Waxer’s almost here with the food.”

“Okay.”

The food arrives soon after that, on trays carefully balanced on each of Waxer’s arms. The minute he had handed the two trays to Cody, the trooper had come forward to wrap his arms around Wooley’s spindly bodies, crying more freely as he hugged his  _ vod’ika _ with the gentleness of a crafter. Unfortunately, he and Wooley could not catch up — Waxer and Boil were being assigned somewhere on the other side of Coruscant. He  _ did _ promise Wooley that they would talk once more the next time he’s on break, and he sends Cody a softened nod before leaving to get his things in order.

Wooley makes a face at his food as he eats, grimacing at the empty taste that the large ration square provided. Still, Cody forces him to eat before he tries his own plate, the younger having been deprived of food even with all the nutrients hooked through the needles embedded in the wedge between his forearm and shoulder. He knows what Wooley would say. The food that was made by the clones, back on Baltor and Tiika, was much more flavorful than these droid-dispensed abominations.

Cody fights down the wave of grief that rises upon the remembrance of Nikita, the trooper who was the 212th’s resident cook. He still remembers her vividly — her dark scarlet curls and a soft smile that she beheld for others with no contempt, kind and thoughtful demeanor that yielded a tint of playfulness as well, her deep bond with Percival and Sprint as they were one of Kamino’s rare triplets. He remembers her love for children, allowing the children of Ryloth to place flower crowns atop her head, her adoration for the shinies and Iuya the first time they met. He remembers her cooking. Warm and familiar. Along with the pleasant scent is the memory of a saber splitting her chest in half.

When Wooley can’t eat anymore, stomach refusing to cooperate with the food’s size and flavorless taste, Cody reaches over to lace his fingers with the younger. Wooley grips him back tight. Not tight enough to hurt Cody, but just enough to show just how much pain Wooley held within himself. Cody massaged his hand carefully, aiming to console him as much as he can.

“He’s gone,” Wooley mutters. His words are dripping with uncharacteristic spite. He refuses to use the name of the man in question, but Cody doesn’t need a damn  _ mirshe _ to know who he’s talking about. “He got away. He's just going to get away with this. We can’t do anything about it.”

Cody shakes his head. “Not for long. I can bet you on that.”

Wooley regards him with a frown. “What do you—?” He cuts himself off when Cody unclips the  _ jetii’kad _ hanging from his belt, opening up his palm to allow Wooley to look at it with widened eyes. “That’s…”

“You missed a lot while you were asleep,  _ vod’ika _ . A whole lot.”

He tells Wooley everything that happened. From his discharge from the medical facility to the funeral for their fallen brethren, upon where he had gone to the Jedi Archives and began to train himself in the use of a lightsaber. He tells him of the mission on Saleucami to rescue Master Koth, where he had saved two of the pilots on their cruiser and held his own against Grievous twice before cyborg escaped, much to Cody’s pure hatred. He informs him of his meeting with the Jedi Council later on, where they allowed him to keep the blade and receive training from them. Though they had still been skeptical enough that they tested his midi-chlorian count the day after ( the test revealed that he had a high average, but not enough for him to be Force-sensitive, much to half the Council’s pleasure and half the Council’s disappointment). Cody had gotten word just yesterday that the Chancellor approved of the idea, apparently liking the idea of him running around with a lightsaber. The Senate was still a work in progress, but with Chancellor Palpatine at his side, it was inevitable that they would follow.

Once he finishes his story, Wooley’s left staring at him. There’s a complex of emotions across his facade. “Holy shit.”

Cody gives him a pointed glare. It’s not as effective as he wanted it to be. “Language.”

“Sorry, I—” Wooley registers his words, taking it in statement by statement, still trying to grasp the meaning of all of it. “I just… but you’ve  _ seen  _ him. A— and now you’re just… what are you going to do with a lightsaber?”

“It’s obvious.” Cody clips Iuya’s former blade back to his belt. “I’m going to kill him.”

“I— I know, but—” Wooley stutters, and he’s still trying to take in the info. “Putting that all on yourself, you can’t just— he’s a  _ demon _ ,  _ vod _ . You can’t— I can’t let you—”

“Wooley.”

Cody cups Wooley’s hand between his own, the bare skin of Wooley’s hands sandwiched between Cody’s gloves. His skin is cold. So cold. It lacks the warmth he’s always placed upon it, the same solace that he craved back then. He needs to be a pillar for Wooley. Wooley is his  _ vod’ika _ , who he adores with his whole being. He’s never letting what happened to them happen again. He’s never going to abandon his brothers ever again.

“I promise,” he says, “that I will find and  _ kill _ Grievous. I will make sure he  _ pays _ for every wrong, everything he’s done to us. For you. For everyone we lost that night.”

Wooley stares at him in silence for a few. “You promise?” Wooley asks him. For once, his voice is uncertain. His vocal cords that rang with determination now had fallen to a quiet tone. Cody nods. His promise to Wooley was a promise that had been set in stone the moment Grievous had crashed upon their satellite, the moment he had taken up Iuya’s blade with a shaky hand. It was a promise he was determined to never break — that no matter what could occur in this bloody war, the thing he was hellbent on doing was having that bastard’s head on a plate. He was going to avenge his brothers, avenge Iuya,  _ avenge Wooley _ and nothing could sway him. Nothing.

“I promise,” Cody responds. He gently headbutts Wooley. A Keldabe Kiss, and also a silent confirmation of his promise.

Wooley’s lips twitch. It’s not a smile — no, he won’t be smiling for a few days, Cody fears. Just the way that the former rookie looked at him makes his chest ache. His eyes, so shrouded in darkness, gave way to but a slight glimpse of hope. Wooley’s still kicking in there. He’s still down there, fighting stubborn and determined. Still hopeful as he had been since Cody had met his eyes, the day he had been deployed with the 212th to Ryloth. 

“Hey,” he begins when he remembers something, something he had been dying to say when Wooley would awaken. “Do you remember our conversation that night on Tiika? Before the attack?”

Wooley nods. He doesn’t know where Cody is leading with this.

“Well, General Kenobi told me about a food place his friend owns, a joint down on Coruscant. Called  _ Dex’s _ . I figured that when you’ve fully recovered and I’m on my next break, we could go down there to check it out. Maybe walk around after that, go anywhere you want.”

Wooley’s face snaps up to him. “Seriously?”

“I know it seems a little lame, but it’s all I can afford. And I don’t want to get kicked out of any water parks for the rest of my life.”

“No, no, it’s…” If it were any other circumstance, Wooley would be grinning like a maniac. “Thank you. I’d love to do that with you. Always liked food not processed from a clanker.

To that, Cody manages to huff out a breath of laughter. He checks the chronometer on the wall and feels the minor elevation of his mood dampen once more. He didn’t want to leave Wooley — hell, he could stay here for the rest of the goddamn week and ignore every single one of his responsibilities just to make up for lost time. But he needs to be down at the Jedi Temple for his lesson with Obi-Wan. General Kenobi didn’t like slackers ( it’s why Skywalker always put him in a foul mood, intentional or not ). And he was the one who forced the Council to teach him, and if he slips once, that would be the end to his path of vengeance. He sighs in defeat and gives Wooley a sympathetic smile.

“I need to go,” he tells him. “Got my first lesson with General Kenobi today. I’ll come back after.”

“You will?”

“Of course,  _ vod’ika _ .” He places a hand on the younger’s shoulder, taking his food tray away and placing it on the nightstand beside the bed. He eases his baby brother into a comfortable lying down on the bed, making sure that the pillows are comfy enough for him to rest on. “I’ll be right back, I promise.”

“Okay.”

Cody hesitantly gets up from the mattress to leave when Wooley’s hand latches onto his own, his bare hand meeting Cody’s glove and preventing their skin from making true contact with one another. The commander looks back to find Wooley, face contorted once again into pain and fear. Fearful that Cody was going to leave him again, that he would let him be once again the victim to the shadow of Grievous looming over their heads. It stabs at Cody’s heart. He comes close and gives Wooley one final hug, letting his  _ ad’ika _ wrap his arms around his shoulders, gripping so tight he could feel the fingernails digging into the back of his chest plate. He’s shaking a little. It hurts Cody.

“Don’t worry,” Cody tells Wooley, his voice but a mere hush. He presses their foreheads together once more. He’ll be back. He swears to Manda he will be back. “Just get some rest. Let the medics run their tests. I’ll be back soon.”

Wooley’s grip tightens on him. “Bye,  _ vod _ .”

Cody feels another wave of tears rise within himself, but he promptly ignores it, squeezing his eyes shut and shoving down any sob that rises from his throat. He releases Wooley slowly, so afraid of letting go, so afraid of either of them falling apart more than they needed to be. Soon only their hands were touching. Cody hesitantly slips from the other’s grasp, before pivoting around and briskly walking away. He’s afraid that if he lingers too long, he’ll fall apart as well.

  
  


The Jedi Temple appears almost deserted when he arrives.

The only other sentients he finds along the way are old Jedi Knights too ancient to participate in battle, making their ways from the Jedi Archives to the dormitories located opposite to it. Cody passes by pillars gilded by luminescent materials, of paintings created out of tile, as he travels further down towards the center of the ziggurat.

The courtyard is beautiful. The ceiling gives away into bright blue skies with billowing clouds and rush in a gentle breeze. Around the perimeter of the training grounds is an alabaster wall with looming arches and jutting staircases, the tall spirals of the Temple rising like titans above him. There is a flight of steps leading down to the main grounds below upon where Cody finds a tree he’s never seen before. The tree, a uneti, beheld the same oaken colors as the others of its species, but this one was unique. Like energy around its trunk flows a mysterious substance, golden light of makeshift rivers radiating a warm and comforting aura that grows as he comes closer. Its leaves appear as feathers, swaying in the wind, though none of them broke from the branches that tethered it to the tree. These leaves were of gold, twinkling in the rays of the sun rising over Coruscant.

In front of the tree kneels a familiar-looking  _ Jetii _ . Obi-Wan Kenobi, clad in his robes with armor foregone. Meditating. Obi-Wan seems to sense his presence, and he turns around to face Cody with a pleasant smile.

“Pleasant morning, isn’t it, Commander?” the Jedi Master questions.

“General Kenobi,” Cody greets on instinct. He reaches the end of the flight of stairs to meet his ‘mentor’ and take in the sight of the gorgeous uneti tree, singing an eerie tune to him. It held a strange essence to it, though Cody was unable to put a finger on it, only knowing that the image of this empyrean tree was enough to ease his mind a little. “Yeah, it’s nice.”

“I knew you’d think so.” Kenobi brings his legs from his kneeling position to face Cody in a cross-legged position. “Come. Sit with me.”

Cody narrows his eyes at him in confusion but he obeys. Hesitantly, he sits cross-legged and around a meter away from his General.

“Do you know this tree?” Obi-Wan asks him, gesturing to the magnificent uneti that loomed over their heads, its branches like vipers and leaves like filtering particles. Cody shakes his head. “We call this the Great Tree. It grows here, in the heart of the Jedi Temple. It used to be a part of the Jedi Temple on Ossus, but as of now it resides here with us on Coruscant. It has a particular connection with the Force, making it a great place to sit and meditate by.”

“You’re saying the tree is Force-sensitive?” Cody asks.

General Kenobi gives him a playful smile. “The Force flows through all living things, Cody. Sometimes, it flows through things that we don’t normally consider to be living it all.” He regards the uneti tree as if it were an old friend, eyes tracing over the rivers snaking over its trunk.

“Forgive me, General,” Cody says, not wanting to ruin Obi-Wan’s pleasant mood but he really doesn’t understand the point of this, “but I’m not Force-sensitive. And I’m not sure meditation would help me in a fight.”

“I thought the same thing too, my dear commander, back when  _ I _ was a Padawan. In truth, meditation works for everyone, Jedi or not. It opens up the mind and allows you to think clearly, effectively, especially during combat. When I meditate, I let myself go to the Force. When you meditate, you let yourself go in any way you please.”

“So you want me to meditate with you? To  _ open up my mind _ ?”

“Precisely.” Obi-Wan smiles at him. “It is always good to have a little meditation to clear your head before your training starts.”

Cody fidgets with his calf guards, but he figures a little meditation with General Kenobi wouldn’t hurt. He’s never done meditation before — mostly because he’s never had the time to do so since he was so preoccupied with strategies and battles, slightly because he didn’t see the point of it. But he’ll digress nonetheless. “Alright. So, uh, what do we do?”

“Put your hands together, like this.”

Obi-Wan interlaces his fingers together and places them down in his lap. Cody follows his movements.

“Good. Now close your eyes, and keep them shut.”

Cody obeys.

“Now, just take a deep breath. And exhale. Good, just like that. Inhale, exhale. With every exhale, release a part of yourself into the Force. Keep your mind steady. Let the wind around us take control and guide you in your meditation. Breathe in, breathe out.”

Cody follows each of his instructions. He takes in a deep inhale, holds for a few seconds, exhales when his lungs are close to bursting. He keeps his posture straight and his hands folded in his lap, his chin up as he looks towards a sky that he cannot see. Cody can vaguely hear the chirping of avians and starships flying overhead into the atmosphere, the rustling of the tree above them as clear as day.

“Good, Commander. Good.” Obi-Wan’s voice is serene. “Just keep your breathing steady, your mind clear. Do not think of anything but the present moment. Feel yourself calm, let go of the stress and worry.”

Soon Cody cannot hear anything but the roar of an ocean beyond, the rustling of the uneti’s trees overhead, of his own heartbeat that has slowed down considerably. He doesn’t think of the war. He doesn’t think of the  _ vode _ that he had lost over the course of these last few months. How much  _ tal _ he had seen shed that night on Tiika. The dream of Iuya along with the passing shadow overhead that haunted him since. He does not think of his hatred towards Grievous, of his depression that only grows worse with every  _ vod _ lost, of the galaxy crumbling down around him as he stands there, helpless. He does not think, forces himself not to, and clears his mind just enough so that the pain can’t grasp him.

If there was anything that he thinks about, it’s about Rex. It’s about Wolffe. It’s about Wooley who he yearns to be beside. It’s about Boil and Waxer and Fox and Ponds and Bly. It’s about his  _ vode _ . His  _ vode _ tether him down.

After a few more moments of silence, Obi-Wan says, “Now, open.”

Cody’s eyes flutter open. He grimaces in the sudden blare of light from the world that had previously been clouded in darkness. General Kenobi observes him with curiosity, hands still folded in his lap.

“So?” Obi-Wan Kenobi inquires. “Did it work?”

Cody does a spot-check on himself. He feels… light. His head doesn’t suffer from the migraines he was so used to having, a pleasant emptiness that didn’t throb against his skull. He’s not overthinking as he usually does. His body feels more in tune with itself, every receptor on his wrist restoring its connection with his head, each roll of his hand something he  _ feels _ . He feels as if he were back with Rex and Wolffe in his dormitory or with Wooley when they laced their fingers together. Light.

“Yeah,” he admits with uncertainty.

“Good.” General Kenobi claps his hands together before standing from his position with a graceful flourish, looking down at Cody with an eager grin. “Come along, Commander. It’s time for your first lesson.”

He brings Cody down to the lower courtyard, where it was barren of any life. He took him to a long platform of alabaster tiles, placed right in front of another entrance to the grounds with pillars jutting near its staircase. There’s equipment scattered organized neatly across the perimeter of the platform — remotes Cody knew to simulate blaster fire, a few bacta packs in the case of an injury, and a few practice swords and such if one did not have a lightsaber.

Obi-Wan leads Cody to the center of the long platform and turns to face him with hands folded behind his back. “Alright, as you have most likely already gathered the basics of training from the books from the Archives, I reckon you don’t need a huge introduction on the basics of lightsaber training. How much do you know already?”

Cody thinks for a second. “I memorized most of the basics, sir.”

“Really?” Obi-Wan muses. “Alright.” The  _ Jetii _ reaches into the sleeves of his tunic, pulling out a strange remote that Cody had not seen before. He presses a button on it, and appears the simulation of a battle droid, one of the commando droids he had remembered from Grievous’ boarding party, its silver hide gleaming almost as if it were the real thing. Behind it appears a few more droids in the form of B-1s and Super Battle Droids. They raise their vibroswords and blasters, aiming right at Cody.

“Show me what you’ve learned,” Obi-Wan asks him smugly.

Cody nods and reaches down to unclip his lightsaber, activating it and holding it in an aggressive stance. Eyes focused, gaze trained on the sims before him. Personally, Cody didn’t like simulations — he much preferred the more authentic feel of cutting through a training dummy or going at it with a punching bag, but he wouldn’t complain. He keeps his feet knee-length apart, his breathing calm, and his mind steady. When the first commando droid takes a single step forward, Cody strikes with no hesitation.

When the commando droid slices down at him, Cody quickly ducks out the way and delivers a swift kick to its side and plunges his  _ jetii’kad _ into the chest of a B-1, decapitating it with two quick slices before training his gaze on the others. When they shoot at him, he deflects their blasts, and manages to hit at least one with the deflected shot, its body falling to the floor with a  _ thud _ . General Kenobi watches him from the sidelines, inspecting his movements, making a few comments for Cody to adjust his stance a little before he’s back on his toes. In a few minutes or more, the sims are left in shreds on the floor, and Cody’s already sweating. General Kenobi hums in approval.

“Very good… for a beginner.” Cody raises an eyebrow at him, and at that, Obi-Wan chuckles. “I jest, I jest. You did remarkable. Now let’s fix a few things, shall we?”

They train for almost two hours. For the first half, they focus on improving Cody’s previous knowledge of blade work and technique ( which did not require too much aid, Kenobi had told him ) and having him practice different stances that he had not yet covered. Cody does a move, Obi-Wan rates and critiques it, and Cody memorizes the change by the time they focus on the next stance move. Once they finish a set, they have him go at the simulations again, cranking the difficulty higher and higher each time.

By the end of it, Cody’s sweating like a beast, wiping his perspired forehead with the small towel that Obi-Wan gifts him. General Kenobi had him practice disarming with the hilt of his blade, deflecting blaster shots accurately, different sets with the practice swords that had each of his muscles burning by the time the sims are deactivated. He finishes one of the stacked water bottles on the side of the training platform three-quarters through their lesson.

“I think that’s enough training for today,” Obi-Wan tells Cody, who chugs the rest of his second water bottle while cleaning the sheen of sweat that accumulates over his face. “You learn quickly.”

Cody releases an exhale after he finishes up the canteen, closing it and letting out one final breath. “Thank you, General.”

“I do wonder where you had gained your close-combat technique before,” Obi-Wan admits. “Who taught you all those moves? The  _ Cuy’val Dar _ ?”

Cody pauses. He gives Obi-Wan a small glance, wondering whether he should say. He hauls up a few of the practice blades to return it back to the equipment rack at the side of the platform. “I learned it from Jango Fett.”

Obi-Wan pivots to face him with a stunned expression. Clearly shocked by Cody bringing up the name neither of them have brought up to one another in any instance besides their introduction to one another at the start of the war. “Jango Fett? I mean, I can recollect from what you had told me that he supervised your batch with Alpha-17. I never knew that he was the one to teach you your swordsmanship.”

“Well,” Cody shrugs, “he doesn’t really tell anyone his secrets.”

“Indeed,” Obi-Wan hums, musing over the new information. He glances at Cody, whose demeanor had become more reclusive in his blunt answer. He really hates the look that his general gives him. Wants nothing better than to shift from the topic entirely before Obi-Wan presses him on. Cody, instead of commenting, enacts his own form of vengeance and opts to ask him a pressing question of his own.

“General?”

“Yes, Cody?”

“Do you know anything about Form VII?”

General Kenobi looks as if he nearly drops the stack of combat remotes in his arms. He shoves the equipment into the rack to look Cody bewildered in the eye. “Form VII? You know about that?”

“It was in the books I checked out from the Archives,” Cody tells Obi-Wan. “Do you know anything about it?”

General Kenobi’s beaming facade falls to a grim look, searching for the words to say. “Form VII is the most vicious form of lightsaber combat recognized by the Jedi Order. It has two variations — Juyo and Vaapad. Juyo was restricted among the Order, while Vaapad was created by Master Windu in order to harness the technique. However, the form as a whole has led many to the Dark Side. Many practitioners of it were Sith. Master Billaba was the last Jedi I remember to train in Vaapad, and she had nearly fallen to the Dark in doing so.”

Commander Cody frowns. “I’m not Force-sensitive though. That shouldn’t apply to me.”

“Are you saying you want to learn it?” General Kenobi questions him, concern stretching across the dark lines beneath his irises. “I would not recommend it, Cody — even to a non-Force-adept, it is still a dangerous fighting style. It is also very,  _ very _ difficult to learn. Only those who have knowledge of all the other forms would even have a  _ chance _ of learning it. I do not have the knowledge of it to teach you. No, the only person with the knowledge to train you in Form VII would be Master Windu.”

“Oh.” Cody bites back a few more questions, partial to the churn of his gut and partial to the growing concern on his Jedi’s face that felt unnecessary.

“But not to worry, Commander!” Obi-Wan slaps him on the back. “You’re not restricted to me as your teacher. I will be gone on a mission to Mandalore tomorrow, but while I’m gone, you can ask the other Jedi here to train you. I’ve heard General Secura and Master Plo were very eager to teach you a few things. Maybe you can get even Master Krof to mentor you.”

Cody gives Obi-Wan a deadpan look. “Absolutely not.”

“Oh, thank the Force,” Obi-Wan chuckles lightly. “I don’t think I would even have him stand next to you when we’re on deployment together. You should get some rest. You’ve done well today.”

“Appreciated, General.” Cody is about to turn around when he remembers something. “Oh, I wanted to tell you. Wooley just woke up this morning in the medical bay. Still a little shaken up but he’s alright.”

General Kenobi’s face lit up. “Really? That is wonderful. Would… you mind if I tag along? Only for a brief while, before I prepare for my trip.”

Cody blinks at Obi-Wan. “You… want to visit him?”

“Of course,” Obi-Wan tells him. He stuffs away the combat remotes to give Cody a knowing glance. “It’s like you said. I need to get my head out of my… you know and care for my troops. And I’ve been meaning to visit him for quite some time.”

Cody can’t help it. He grins. “Then come on, General.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translations: 
> 
> nuhoyir: sleep, slumber  
> "udesii": "calm down"  
> shuk'la: fragmented, broken, crushed  
> mirshe: brain
> 
> i'm crying there is an actual word in mando'a for brain cell. battle of kamino is coming up, babey!


	12. torrential rains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Now,” Jango starts, “wake up.”
> 
> Kote blinks. “Wh—?”
> 
> Jango grabs him by the throat. “Wake up!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, remember that episode yesterday? shattered? i have been fucking wrecked. if you haven't watched it, i envy you so much because i am so [keyshmash]. like god!! anyways, next chapter is where the fun begins. everything after the next few goes downhill. trust me. it will go bad.
> 
> mando'a translations on the bottom! also, i changed my tumblr url to wlwsoka. because i love ahsoka and ahsoka is a wlw.

The day before, the Republic had intercepted a transmission from Separatist channels passing through their vicinity. Cody and Rex had entered the bridge of the cruiser them and their respective generals resided within, finding Crypt — tech expert of the clone officers currently onboard — decrypting the message while the generals waited expectantly. Whatever it was, it seemed to rouse concern in General Kenobi, who had alerted them to come to the bridge the minute they had gotten wind of the signal. 

Finally, Crypt is able to piece together the audio. A woman spurns to life in the form of a blue hologram. She is cloaked in a long dark robe that pools around her obscured feet, her stark white face hidden beneath the careful hood of her robe. _“The clone planet of Kamino will be a dangerous target,”_ she says. Her voice is like a nest of rattlesnakes slithering among each other, made even more sinister with the crackle of the faulty audio.

The form cuts to another person. Instinctively, Rex reaches up to grab Cody’s arm when he sees his _ori’vod_ reel back, his throat bobbing with the sudden image of the very person that appears in the hologram. _“Make sure you hold up your half of the mission,”_ the metallic heathen told the lady robed in darkness, his voice a cacophonous symphony. _“We must stop the production of new clones. If we will win this war, we must act swiftly.”_

 _“And of that defective clone you had spoken of?”_ the woman questions. _“Obi-Wan’s lackey?”_

 _“Do not worry, Ventress,”_ the thing hisses. _“He will not live for long. Now come.”_

The transmission cuts. For a few minutes, there is a dreadful silence that permeated throughout the room. The generals from the other side of the terminal, Skywalker and Kenobi, were pondering over the message with concerned interest. Besides him, Rex's free hand shook as it rested on the edge of the terminal, eyes boring holes into the center of the terminal full of a darkness that Cody can recognize in himself in many instances. Disbelieving, offended. And Cody?

Cody had stood there. Stood there silent and numb. Staring down at the holoterminal. For a few moments he cannot speak. 

They’re attacking his home. _His_ home. Kamino, nestled in the Rishi Maze, home to all the young cadets that would soon make their ways out into the war. His home. 

Led by Ventress. The woman who had caused the deaths of millions of his brothers, the woman who had emotionally manipulated Rex to the point where the other could barely speak for days, the woman who had taken out Wolffe’s eye and had shattered him beyond recognition. The woman who broke both his _vod’ika_ and _ori’vod_ , leading the charge against his home planet that hosted millions and millions of his brethren. His _ade_.

And Grievous. He doesn’t need to explain that. Because right now, all that fills him is the rancor that causes his muscles to shake violently. Kamino. They were attacking Kamino. The man responsible for the deaths of his _vode,_ killing more.

“They’re going to attack our home planet,” Rex mutters. He’s not doing any better than Cody, his hand still remaining on his forearm that grips so tight that his armor cuts him in the skin but Cody doesn’t care. Rex’s eyes were of disbelief. Now, they were of the same fury that Cody holds within himself.

“The Separatists are taking quite the chance even considering this,” General Kenobi muses, scowling at the transmission with a hand running through his beard. “Kamino is one of the primary locations the Republic depends on. There are thousands of clones stationed there as well.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Rex says, ripping his eyes away from the communicator with a fierce expression that Cody adores, “if someone comes to our home, they better be carrying a big blaster.”

“I admire that in you, Captain,” Kenobi says, but his unsettled face still remains. “However, there is another matter in that message.” He and the others in the room direct their gazes to Commander Cody, who feels his arms cross instinctively to protect himself. “Commander, Grievous and Ventress seem to be expecting _your_ presence. I am afraid it would be dangerous to have you there if they plan on targeting you directly.” Skywalker nods next to him. Rex doesn’t speak, but his eyes drift to the side as he thinks.

Was… was Obi-Wan planning to leave him out of this? 

He knows he would be playing right into the enemy’s hands if he went over there, just as reckless as the other Jedi who have done so. He knows he’s expected, knows they would want to kill him before he had a chance to rise to their level of bladework. But Cody’s frothing with anger. He would not stay back here as the rest of his brethren were slaughtered once more. He would not stay here, not with the words of _defective_ and _lackey_ stinging him deep enough to pierce. 

He’s not going to stay here. Not when he has someone to kill.

“Kamino is personal for us clones,” Cody tells them with defiance blazing in his eyes. “It’s personal to _me_. We’re not going to let just anyone attack our home without going through us.” He can tell that the others have given up, his stubborn demeanor too strong for them to push further, when none of them continue the argument. Even Rex doesn’t, despite his conflicted expression.

“We’ll make sure Kamino is secure,” Skywalker determines with gruff confidence. “Tell your troops in the 501st and 212th they’re going home.”

“Yes, sir!” Cody and Rex reply. They leave the bridge, the doors closing behind them for their departure, and begin making their ways down to the mess hall to brief the other _vode_ . Rex, however, still holds the aura of uncertainty that ticks something in Cody of something wrong. “Something the matter, Rex?” he asks his _vod’ika_.

“Cody, they talked about you _directly_ ,” Rex stresses. “No Separatist general refers to a clone directly, not unless they’re a _threat_ . I want you to come, I do, but you are in just as much danger as our _ade_ on Kamino.”

Cody sighs. “I’m going to be a big target no matter what mission we’re on. They’re targeting our _home_ Rex, I have to go. Besides, I have you. You’ll be there when I need you.”

Rex doesn’t look convinced, but nonetheless doesn’t say anything after that.

  
  


_“Again, Kote.”_

_Legs shoulder-width apart. Front facing forward. Back at an angle. Head held high, balance steady. Level body, rigid spine, eyes on target. Inhale, exhale. Grip blade tight. Focus on what is ahead._

_“Again, Kote.”_

_Legs shoulder-width apart. Front facing forward. Back at an angle. Head held high, balance steady. Level body, rigid spine, eyes on target. Inhale, exhale. Grip blade tight. Focus on the enemy._

_“Again, Kote.”_

_Legs shoulder-width apart. Front facing forward. Back at an angle. Head held high, balance steady. Level body, rigid spine, eyes on target. Inhale, exhale. Grip blade tight. Focus, don’t falter._

_“One more time,_ **_ad’ika_ ** _.”_

_Kote nods at his command. Legs shoulder-width apart, head held high, eyes on target. Inhale, exhale. Focus, no falter, and he charges at Jango once more. Three clean swipes — one at the knees, one at the heart, one at the head. Blade moves swiftly, like a river down a hill, slicing the air until even his breaths were halved. Three clean swipes, and Jango blocks all of them in quick precision. Focus, focus, focus. Eyes on opponent, only on opponent and on nothing else. Slice, slice, slice. Legs, chest, neck. One, two, three. Clang, clang, clang. And their lesson is finished._

_“Good work today, Kote,” Jango tells him with a paternal grin. Kote is five now. His grip on a blade is pristine, his swipes at the heads and hearts of enemies of the near future are relentless and precise. He is panting, arms from the elbow to the shoulder burning from the drills Jango made him do, sweat pouring down his face but he’s grinning like a champion. The praise makes him swell up in joy._

_“Thank you,_ **_buir_ ** _,” he huffs at him, sheathing his blade into the belt at his hip. Jango tosses him a rag and a water bottle from the side of the training ground, the latter of which Kote takes huge gulps from after being dehydrated for so long. After holding the sword for so long, he almost forgets to hold the bottle. The style is still ingrained into his head. Slice, slice, slice. Cut, cut, cut. Knees, heart, head._

 **_These three are your primary targets_ ** _, Jango had told him before they had begun their daily lesson._ **_Lovike. Kar’ta. Kovid._ ** _Knees, heart, head. Where he aims, where he strikes, where he is bound by honor yet clad in ruthlessness. Where he aims first and foremost, slices without any remorse. Jango taught him that. Taught him to aim at what the enemy would miss the most._

_Jango’s fighting style was ferocious. Dirty. One that had been a disgrace to his brethren on Mandalore, yet he taught it to Kote. He taught him to be ruthless, to be fierce, to fight with the whole body because his whole body was meant to be a weapon. A point to utilize. He was the blade, while his own sword was a manifestation of it. Kote was the weapon, and Kote was the one who strikes viciously. Just like Jango, the strongest bounty hunter in the galaxy._

_Yet there is nothing vicious when Jango places a hand on his shoulder, smiling down at him proudly as he chugs the last of his_ **_pirun_ ** _. His smile was soft, lukewarm, and it has Kote’s chest bursting with pride at being the subject of such a look. There is nothing vicious when Jango is off the mats. When he trains Kote, he is relentless, pushing him to the brink until he is at the edge of the cliff, forcing him to evaluate every mistake he makes in his work. But when he is beside Kote, before and after their personal lessons, he appears so much more. So much softer and quieter, admiring him as he does with his own son, whose coordination had only recently grown upon turning five the same time as Kote did. It makes Kote’s heart soar._

 _“You’ve been practicing on your own, haven’t you,_ **_Kote’ika_ ** _?” Jango questions him as Kote lets the edge of the bottle fall from his lips, twisting the cap back on and tossing it in the nearby trans compactor. “I’ve noticed your balance. It’s getting much better now.”_

_Kote nods as he dabbed his face with the white towel Jango offered him. “I’ve been practicing in my free time,” he says. Jango's smile intensifies even more, albeit how small the change seemed._

_“_ **_Jate, jate_ ** _,” Jango hums. “You’ve taken my advice?”_

_“No,” Kote answers. “I’ve taken my own.”_

_At that, Jango chuckles. A deep, gravelly chuckle that held so much humanity in it that Kote could listen to it on days on end. He loves making his_ **_buir_ ** _laugh, especially after a long and exhausting day. “Of course you would,” his mentor admits, smiling fondly as he takes the rag Kote uses to wipe his face, letting it rest atop a nearby bench. “Are you going to practice what I taught you later?”_

 _“Mhm,” Kote nods. “I’m kicking Wolffe’s_ **_shebs_ ** _tomorrow on the mat.”_

 _“Language,_ **_Kote’ika_ ** _,” Jango scolds, but his tone is light. “You have a strong will. That is always what you need to have if you want to master a blade. Do you remember the first thing I had taught you, before our first lesson?”_

_“Don’t hesitate,” Kote recites. “Keep your eyes forward. Don’t look away.”_

_“_ **_Jate_ ** _. Do not hesitate in combat,_ **_vod’ika_ ** _. Remember to always remain in focus, ground yourself to the floor below. With one wrong move, you’ll end up another_ **_kyr’ad_ ** _. And you wouldn’t want that.”_

_“Yeah, I wouldn’t.”_

_“Ah, I see you’ve gained a sense of humor as well,” Jango muses. “Careful. You would not want to get carried away in your confidence.”_

_“I know,_ **_buir_ ** _,” Kote responds. “You always said to be humble.”_

_Jango nods. He reaches out and tugs Kote close. He’s grown taller now. A few more days and he’ll be at Jango’s shoulder, battling with Wolffe over being the tallest of their batch. Kote sticks close to his mentor, his shoulder against the man’s torso, smiling jubilantly at the arm wrapped around his own shoulders. “I can see the potential in you, Kote,” Jango says. “I can tell you’re going to do great things.”_

_“Really?” Kote asks him, eagerness in the form of a grin in his eyes._

_“Of course,” Jango answers. “Just keep your head high. Even in the face of adversity, never take your eye off your opponent. You are born to be strong, a commander leading an army. They will look up to you, just as you look up to me. So, when it comes down to it, never_ **_ever_ ** _hesitate. A few seconds is all it takes for everything to change.”_

_Kote nods, memorizing the mantra in his head, filing it down in his brain until the words are ingrained into his memory. All of Jango’s speeches are embedded into his brain, almost like a hard drive, each lesson taught a lesson learned. Never hesitate. Feet shoulder-length apart, eyes forward, body balanced and back rigid. Never hesitate._

_“Now,” Jango starts, “wake up.”_

_Kote blinks. “Wh—?”_

_Jango grabs him by the throat._ “Wake up!”

His eyes fly open, his body reeling forward with the sudden momentum of being somewhere other than the training grounds of home. He’s on a ship, he knows that to be true. A ship tethered to nothing just as he feels. He blinks in the fluorescents of the lights above to adjust to the sudden brightness. He’s in his private quarters on a Republic cruiser. Same layout as the Negotiator and Resolute he memorized since he had taken up dormitory within the former ship. He could recognize the shelves hosting copies of books that he brought along to their ship, the bedside table hosting a small chronometer that read the time. The small alarm, blaring like trumpets, right in his eardrum and pulling him from the reaches of sleep.

He takes one look at the time. Right.

He hits the freshers, changes into a new pair of blacks, dons his sunset-clad armor over his body. The way it tightened around his skin felt like an unneeded layer. Armor reduced his agility despite increasing his endurance against blaster fire. It aided him in the bruising kicks and punches against clanker, but in every other aspect it hindered him. Wearing it, he did know whether to feel proud or small under the bulky pieces of plastoid.

Finally, he takes a look at himself in the mirror. Sees himself, clad in plastoid-alloy, the paint of marigold detailing each piece of his armor like streaks of rivers. Takes one look at himself, and takes in a huge inhale, exhaling through his nose to steady his mind. Just as Jango had taught him, and just as Obi-Wan had taught him.

He places a careful hand over his hip. His _jetii'kad_ hangs from it, glittering like starlight. He leaves his quarters and never looks back.

In but an hour later, he and his _vode_ are at the bridge of their cruiser. It’s whiplash, a slap to the face, just seeing the world again. The first time he had seen Kamino in all its oceanic glory with his own two eyes from above its atmosphere, it had been before and after the First Battle of Geonosis. He had remembered seeing it through the viewports of the gunship, his heart yearning to be locked within those watery depths yet begging to never have to face the sight of that dreadful planet. He remembered seeing it with a nostalgic yearning, then with a grieving vice.

Now he faces that same planet again. A dark azure with white clouds filtering across its surface, the light from its respective stars reflecting off its edge like some sort of halo. It douses the world in a ring of starlight, causing the surface facing their cruiser to be of nothing but darkness. Cody’s hand wraps around the weapon at his belt, altitude decreasing as they neared the watery world. He can already hear the storm clouds. Blaring with lightning, rain beating against his chest mercilessly.

“You alright, _vod_?” Cody hears Rex ask him, noticing the melancholy expression that Cody quickly hides when he’s called upon. The commander nods to his brother, giving him a small glance to assure him that he is alright.

“I’m fine.”

“You nervous?” Rex questions him with a raise of the eyebrow. Not judgemental, just curious. And a little eager. Both him and Rex had grown up here on Kamino, back in the decade between Cody’s creation and the first death toll of Geonosis. They had been by one another’s sides since Cody had met the inconsolable Rex, sobbing in the hallway all alone. This was their home, their childhood — where they played friendly matches and sparred with other squads, assisted in the decantation of new _vode_ and held one another like family. This _yaim’ol_ created a complex string of emotions inside of Cody, only growing when their gunship is close enough to pierce those lightning-ridden clouds.

Cody shrugs. “No.” Though he had advocated for his right to come along on the mission, he doesn’t know how to feel.

Cody takes a glance down at his lightsaber. He’s been training with General Kenobi along with the other generals for quite some time, already at his height when it came to his training. He’s held onto this weapon, day and night, training with the other _Jetiise_ or training on his own, ducking blaster fire and intercepting punches and slicing through the sims. He’s had some practice with using the _jetii’kad_ more on the field as well, as he’s been deployed on numerous missions since Saleucami. Yet he feels his heart pump with the hot fires of adrenaline and anger. This was the first big mission he was going to have with his lightsaber in hand. And it was the first mission that he’ll actually be making a difference. And with hope, he’ll be facing General Grievous again.

Cody returns the question, but before Rex could answer, the troops announce their arrival.

The cruiser docks right in the hangars of Tipoca City, the rain beating down on the destroyer as they land between two of the domes forming the cloning facilities. The bay doors of their cruiser open, and Cody is immediately hit with a breeze of salty air, petrichor filtering throughout the planet like an aroma over its skin. The skies above are not streaking with the familiar voltage of lightning, yet the clouds are still clumped with _genet_ , releasing a torrent of rain that cascade down the sides of their landing craft. The commander is at Captain Rex’s side, behind the generals with buckets discarded beneath their arms, as they descend down the ramp to the facility. Their troopers take up their rear, march booming in his ears.

They reach the end of the ramp to the hangar platform below, and are met with the sight of two individuals, briskly walking towards them. One, a beautiful Togruta, with crimson skin of white facial markings and montrals that jutted like spires from her head. Her forehead was adorned with a headdress of teeth, the beads of which falling down her broadside lekku. The other, a tall Kaminoan, sickly white skin and even paler eyes, strolling towards them with his long scarecrow limbs, making Cody shudder internally.

“Masters Kenobi and Skywalker,” Shaak Ti greets them. Her face looks rather preoccupied, worry lines beneath her tender irises. “Welcome to Kamino.” The Kaminoan at her side nods to them with respect.

“I wish our arrival wasn’t under such dire circumstances,” General Kenobi sighs. “We have intercepted a message. We believe Grievous is planning a Separatist attack on Kamino.”

“But the Republic blockade is far too strong,” Lama Su frowns, his monotone voice like a chord plucked by mistake. “They would not dare. Come, let us speak. I would like to know more about this… attack.”

“You may go on ahead,” Shaak Ti tells the Generals and Prime Minister. “I would like to speak with Commander Cody and Captain Rex for some time.”

Generals Kenobi and Skywalker exchange glances with one another, and the Prime Minister regards Shaak Ti with a puzzled yet curious expression, but nonetheless they comply with their wishes. Before they leave, Lama Su gives Commander Cody a glance. Scanning up and down his body like some doll, as if he searches for defects in his design, gaze cold when they lock eyes. Then he turns back towards the _Jetiise_ at his side, making their ways down to the hangars sporting their fighters for the upcoming space battle to talk more.

The clones behind them, under Rex and Cody’s direction, are told to prepare and gather ammunition before the impending attack would commence. It was most likely for the Separatists to attack when the torrential rains ended. That was when Kamino would not be too drenched to be able to cling to the surfaces outside. General Ti watches the generals disappear from view before turning back to the commander and captain, and her tired facade melts into a motherly smile. “It is good to see you both. I don’t think we have properly spoken with one another.”

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, General,” Captain Rex greets, his voice holding the same stoic demeanor, though he does sound a little surprised that the general would want to speak with _him_ directly. Then again, Shaak Ti was spoken about to be one of the most benevolent overseers of clone trooper training, or just one of the most benevolent Jedi in general. Neither Cody nor Rex have ever seen her in person, and the last time Cody saw her, it had been back during his interrogation in front of the Jedi Council.

Shaak Ti nods to both of them, retaining her kindly smile that causes Cody’s chest to warm. The clones always said she had some aura about her, one that could put even the most panicked troopers at ease. “It is an honor to meet you as well, Captain Rex. You have done many great deeds for our cause. I am quite saddened that for our meeting, it is under such… circumstances.”

“It’s alright, General,” Captain Rex comforts.

Shaak Ti turns to Commander Cody then, and her eyes twinkle playfully as she regards the man. “Commander Cody, it’s a pleasure to see you again as well. How is your training coming along?”

“Fine, sir, “ Cody answers easily. “The other generals have been teaching me a lot these past few weeks.”

“That’s good to hear, Commander,” she says to him, softly. “I look forward to hearing about your experiences. If you’d like, I could escort you both around the base. I am sure you would like to see all the different changes made to the facilities since you have not been here in quite a while.”

“What do you say, Rex?” Cody asks his _vod’ika_. They didn’t really have anything to do as the battle would not start until the rains would cease, and it would give them a good opportunity to make sure all the troops were prepared before the Separatist fleet arrived at the Republic blockade. “You think you’re up for a little tour?”

Captain Rex nods. “Of course. Lead the way, General.”

“It would be my pleasure,” Shaak Ti states. She leads them through to the hangar bay when she spots a boy, working on a nearby starship for the upcoming battle. “Tup!”

The trooper in question perks up from helping with maintenance on one of the fighters. He gives Shaak Ti a skeptic glance before coming up to them, mouth pulled into a frown. He’s wearing standard clone cadet uniform, dark red with the patches indicating his ownership to Kamino, and his ringlets of curls are pulled up into a topknot at the top of his head. He’s not like the other troopers gathered around in this section of Kamino — Cody could not find a single age line or gray hair on his person. 

“Yes, sir?” he asks the general. His eyes ( which appear almost weird in the light of the hangar bay, something in them different from the others ) drift over to Captain Rex and Commander Cody. He’s frozen in place as his eyes bulge out from their sockets upon recognition. “Uh, hi,” he shyly greets with a small wave, before promptly realizing that that’s not how you’re supposed to greet someone, and quickly corrects himself. “I mean, hello. Captain, commander.”

Shaak Ti hides a laugh behind a carefully crafted hand, moving forward to place her hand on Tup’s shoulder, easing the boy’s tension. “This is Tup, one of the more recent batches here on Kamino. I was hoping he would assist me in giving you both a tour of Tipoca. Would you like to come along, Tup?”

“Sure!” Tup nods with eagerness. “I mean… yes, General. C’mon, I’ll show you both around.”

Tup and Shaak Ti guide them around Kamino, all the way from the long stretch of hallway between the columns supporting millions of embryos, curled up in their tiny bacta tanks, to the mess hall and DNA Chamber sporting hundreds of clone cadets, intermingling with their own reinforcements that had arrived to aid on the Battle of Kamino. As they walk, Tup gives them a little rundown of all the aspects that have changed since their last time here. The _Cuy’val Dar_ had been replaced, as the majority of them left after Jango Fett’s death, and bounty hunters from across the galaxy assisted in the training of the clone cadets of Kamino. The Kaminoans had started to be more lenient with placing embryos in the same capsule. The war effort has drastically increased, and they needed to deploy more troopers to make up for the ones that were lost, so several bacta tanks supporting his little _vode’ika_ held at most three. Despite the changes, Kamino was the same as ever.

Its walls were still that pale, ghostly white. Its floors were still spotless and crystalline where just the wrong step could send you spiraling onto the ground. It was still a cavernous space, making him feel like but a cell in the center of a city of skyscrapers, with so many people walking to and fro down the halls and around the secure sections of his home. He felt himself grow nostalgic when they passed by the room where the clone cadets took their final exam, the towers mimicking the Citadel sprouting from the other end of the room. He felt even more nostalgic when he passes the much smaller section of the training grounds, reserved for private lessons that he used to take in the past. He willed his thoughts not to stare longingly at one trooper, clashing at a sim with a blade.

What he found to be the most recognizable ( and a little endearing ) were the clone cadets walking around.

His presence after his several instances with his lightsaber had gradually become more familiar to the GAR, and the vets no longer stared at him as if he were some god amongst their ranks. The shinies had still been mind-blown at the sight of him, but that was pretty much habit due to their rookie physique, and they gradually got better at hiding their stupor whenever he walked into a room. Here on Kamino, though, majority of the clones growing up here were still very young, all who looked up to the famous clone commanders and captains of the GAR from their residence on Tipoca, only seeing out the training grounds for a field trip of some sort.

It made Cody bite back a smile when the clone cadets walking behind their mercenary mentors jolt their heads towards him, gasping upon his visage or gossiping to one another with wide and excited eyes. All of the children ogled him, a few even breaking away from their faux stoicism to greet him with an energetic grin. Cody pretends not to notice the sudden attention he was getting, yet there are moments when he cannot help but be a little teasing towards his _vode_. 

“Is that Commander Cody?” a tiny clone who resided in one of the pod beds up in the barracks asks their group when the commander and the others make their way down the aisle, his hair curling around his face and framing his chubby cheeks. 

“No way!” The other clone cadets race to the edge of their respective bunks to ogle at the commander below. “The Jedi Clone?”

“I heard he cut the muzzle off a Separatist cannon on Kalusto,” one of the cadet’s batch says. This _little un_ ’s hair was styled into a miniature version of haircut regulation, the sides of their head shaven in an undercut. “And that he managed to down a whole squadron of battle droids with one hand behind his back!”

“I heard he exploded a hundred tankers without even a single sweat. And he saved an entire company of troopers from a Separatist bomb!”

“I heard he punched General Grievous in the face. Right in the face!”

“No way!” “You’re lying!” “We should say hi to him! While we have the chance!”

“Hi, sir!” All of the tiny cadets greet him with waves of their tiny hands, grinning from atop their pod bunks as they lean over to take in the sight of him. Cody looks up towards them, his face breaking out into an amused smile. He nods to them in acknowledgment, even risking a small hand wave in return. Much to the young _ade_ ’s delight.

“He’s waving!” “Wow!” “Bye, Commander!” “He’s so cool.”

“You certainly are popular amongst the clone cadets,” Shaak Ti laughs light-heartedly, seeing that the other cadet batches are just as enraptured with Cody as they would be an actual Jedi General. Cody shrugs off-handedly.

“I’m used to it,” Cody responds. Rex huffs, eyeing the young troopers with as much fondness as Cody held when they sent their greetings and admirations towards him.

“It’s better you than me,” he mutters. “Don’t think I can handle all this attention.”

“Aw, is _Rex’ika_ jealous?” he teases his little brother with a grin, shoving him lightly with his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’m sure General Skywalker would lend you his _jetii’kad_ if you asked nicely. I could always use another sparring partner.”

Rex shudders in horror. “Hard pass.”

“Commander Cody?” Tup then inquires, walking backwards in order to face the commander. Now that he had become a little more acquainted with him and Rex, in the lines beneath his shyness revealed a spunky personality, an essence of pubescent rebellion vivid in his strange irises. Cody loves it — and he’s pretty sure Rex does too based on how the latter looks at the young cadet fondly. Tup was nice, and he had a vibrant and eager attitude that painfully reminded him of Wooley.

( Cody really misses Wooley right now. Cody’s certain his _vod’ika_ would have loved to be here with his brethren, protecting them as eager as Cody wanted to. They’ll be back together, after this mission is over and Wooley’s off probation. He promised. )

“Yes, Tup?” Cody responds, raising an eyebrow at the younger with interest.

“Are all those stories true?” the cadet asks him, curiosity in his gaze. “Do you really have a lightsaber?”

Cody silently reaches down to pat the golden saber at his hip. “I’ll let you be the judge of that.”

Tup takes a look at the weapon situated comfortably at his waist, opposite of his own blaster that he saved just in case of an emergency. The cadet’s eyes twinkle, going wide and mirroring many of his younger brethren in their pod beds, and his mouth falls open to an aweing _wow_. Cody hides a smile behind a carefully crafted expression, and he can tell that Shaak Ti and Captain Rex are laughing behind the backs of their wrists.

“So you’re really gonna fight with that?” he asks eagerly. “Can I watch?”

“Tup,” Shaak Ti lightly scolds, “you know you need to remain in the barracks during the assault. To keep you safe.”

“I know,” Tup sighs, but he perks up upon a realization. “But I’m getting deployed with my squadron soon. Maybe I’ll see you out on the field!”

Cody’s expression falls, as does Rex’s. Judging by Tup’s youthful appearance and sprite-like attitude, he couldn’t be older than seven. Even Wooley wasn’t this young when he was deployed. “You’re getting deployed already?” Rex asks him with a deep scowl. Tup senses their shift in emotion, and falls back to an awkward stance, fumbling with his own hair in its neat bun.

“Uh, yeah,” he replies. “My squad is taking the exam next week. After that, they said we’ll most likely be sent to some outpost located in the Mid Rim Territories.”

“How did you hear about that, Tup?” Shaak Ti questions with a frown, but Tup shrugs his shoulders in reply, not elaborating on his knowledge.

Cody and Rex exchange dark glances. They knew the war effort was getting much more dire with each month that passes, and they have already begun to near the end of the year with already so many losses. He knew the Republic was desperate to gain as many soldiers as they could — but it hits differently when Cody takes a look at Tup’s youthful face, free of gray and diminished eye bags. _A teenager_. Perhaps his first assignment would not be as dangerous as other assignments — but he remembers the attack on the Rishi Moon Base, months ago, leaving only Fives and Echo in its wake, scared and traumatized. They had been older than Tup — who knew how war would affect someone of his much younger mindset.

Cody, however in disbelief, does not comment on it. It seems that Shaak Ti is just as uncomfortable with the prospect as he was, but as a Jedi, she took no call of action upon it.

They exit the barracks and make their ways down the hallway, the rains still pattering against the roof of the domes that protected their homes. “I believe that our tour is finished,” Shaak Ti concludes once the fall out into the hallway, turning back to Commander Cody and Captain Rex with a tender smile, still filling the air with a warm and fuzzy feeling. “I will not keep you both here for long. I am sure the two of you have more urgent matters to attend to.”

“Thank you for the kindness, General,” Rex responds with a bow of the head. Cody does so along with him. “Cody and I will help load up supplies and get the troops prepared.”

“That is very kind of you,” Shaak Ti says. In her next words, her eyes hold a sheen to them, her gaze drifting in the direction of the millions of embryos at the heart of Kamino, not yet decanted from their small bacta tanks. “We will need all the aid we can get if we will succeed in our battle. Take care of yourselves. And may the Force be with you.”

She places a gentle hand on Tup’s shoulder as a parting gift before she leaves them be, her robes flowing behind her like rivers as she briskly makes her way to Kamino’s command center. That leaves Cody, Rex, and Tup to settle down and take care of their matters alone.

“I’ll head down to the medbay,” Cody tells them, taking action upon the Jedi General’s retirement. “Get the patients treated and supplies ready before the invasion. We’re not going to face any easy casualties in this one.” Rex hums in affirmation.

“Me and Tup will find Fives and Echo,” he decrees. “We’ll group up together at the command center in an hour.”

Tup perks up at his name, lifting his head to fix a look of pure admiration at Captain Rex. “Wait, really?”

Captain Rex raises an eyebrow at the trooper, and Cody can see the small twitch of the corner of his lips as the captain bites back a smile. “Of course. You seem to know your way around, and I’m not comfortable just walking around by myself. Unless, of course, if you’re busy—”

“No, no!” Tup interrupts, shaking his head with his words. “I want to come, Captain.”

“Great.” He nods to Cody. “See you when the battle starts.”

The words hold a tension to them, words that make Cody’s stomach writhe on the spot, but nonetheless he gives him his affirmations and says farewell to the free-spirit known as Tup. The boy was good at keeping posture, his own eagerness hidden in the way he propped himself up. They make their way down the hall. He can see the young cadet strike up a conversation with his _vod_ just as they round a corner and they disappear from his sight. He’s sure Rex will be in good hands.

He heads down to the medical facility, where medical droids and training clone medics swarmed up and down the white floors, filtering from room to room carrying datapads and utensils. Cody enters one of the rooms that was empty save for a small medical droid, who was zipping in and out taking inventory of all their stock at lightspeed. Cody took up one of the datapads scattered around to aid the small clanker. He began to check over the bacta packs and bandages in the cabinets, and he helped the medics in the other rooms treat the troopers and cadets who were injured prior to the current situation.

( Cody, out of respect, had asked the tiny droid its name. “Oh! My name is AZI-345211896246498721347!” Cody thanks it and asks where the stims are. )

When the small medical droid zips out the first room for what seemed like the final time, Cody is back to checking on the cabinet. Finding that he was alone for the meantime, he took a risk and began singing under his breath as he worked, attempting to occupy himself with the workload and trying not to focus on the upcoming battle threatening to happen once the rain stopped. The pitter-patter of raindrops still hit the roof above, but it would only be a dozen minutes at most before the rain would still, and Grievous would attack.

 _Grievous._ Their third encounter. Leading with the woman responsible for breaking two of Cody’s brothers. Attacking his home. His _aliit_. Even the cadets were not safe, and Cody doesn’t think he could handle another massacre.

He sings a little louder, not enough to be heard by anyone save him but just enough so it feels as if his own hearing is blocked, attempting not to think about it. He’s thinking about it. But he doesn’t want to think about it. All he knows is that his blood is boiling, because somehow Grievous knows just where to strike at his heart. Just the right place to ultimately _shatter_ him. But he’s prepared now. He’s going to face him again — this time, he’s more ready. He’s been training with sims, deflecting at droids. He’ll make him pay for the Tiika Moon, for attacking his home, no matter what he had endured within its ghost-white walls. He won’t let him get away this time.

Suddenly, a voice that rings out from within the room, timid and awkward, pipes up from nothing. “You have a nice voice.”

Cody’s not often surprised ( at least visibly ) but internally he jolts fifteen feet into the air, reeling around to find a teen cadet staring at him. He has raven black hair, darker than most of Cody’s _vode_ , slicked back and revealing a face as youthful as Tup, though Cody could not place if he was older or younger. The boy clutches a datapad to his chest, signifying that he had been going around the medical facility like Cody had been prior. How had Cody not heard his footsteps when he walked through the door?

He didn’t have a chance to find reason to his own answer when the clone cadet squeaks, yelping with a “Sorry!” before returning to stare at the cupboard he’s inspecting, full of bacta rub. His face is flushed down to the neck, matching the same shade of red as his own uniform. He puffs his cheeks out in embarrassment, humming in a flat tone as if to steady himself. 

Cody’s fairly certain that he kept his voice so quiet that others could barely hear him, so to have someone not only hear him and _compliment on it_ was something entirely new.

“How’d you hear me?” Cody questions him gently with the quirk of the eyebrow, and he frowns deeply when the clone cadet curls up in shame even more. 

“I— I just did,” the cadet stammers, eyes darting to and fro as he clutches the datapad tighter. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have addressed you like that, I couldn’t control what I was saying and it just slipped out, I really didn’t mean it — wait, no I did, you have a nice voice, oh stars I am so sorry, please don’t hit me—”

“Hey, hey!” Cody places down his datapad to calmly approach the younger trooper during his stuttering apologies. He holds his hands out as a means of stopping him from hurting himself, as the younger was basically hyperventilating in front of him. The boy, however, flinches like a caged animal. That also made Cody frown. “Calm down, calm down. It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You’re not?” the young cadet asks. The way he looks at Cody with absurdity deeply pains him. What the hell did he mean by that?

“Course, not, _vod’ika_ ,” Cody tells him, trying for a smile to soothe the cadet. “You got a name?”

Almost like a _beskar’ad_ , the teen’s back stiffens, painfully rigid as he answers in a monotonous tone shared by many rookies and shinies. “CT-5381, sir!” The way he spoke sounded almost like a mantra, a rehearsed line that many of the clone cadets have practiced in drills during their training. His answer immediately brought Cody to reminisce meeting Clue and Checker on the ship. It makes his stomach churn.

“I meant your _name_ , cadet,” Cody corrects. He doesn’t mean to sound agitated, but it slips out almost bitterly.

“O— oh…” The boy shifted from one foot to the next, uncertain whether to reveal his name. “I’m Dogma.”

Cody scans Dogma up and down to inspect him. He doesn’t like what he sees. He notices that the younger was skinny — not like Tup was, who had just enough fat on his bones to keep him mildly healthy. This cadet was _bone thin_ , sleeves loose around his narrow wrists and shoulders narrow as a scarecrow, damn well able to rival the _kaminiise_ ’s own limbs if it ever came down to it. His cheekbones are remarkably jutted, casting shadows over his face, and his eyes are lined with sullen darkness beneath them. Dogma looks severely malnourished, too fragile to even _be_ deployed on the front. And it scares Cody. Genuinely.

He knew that both on Kamino and on the frontlines, they had their standard rations served. Cody followed this regimen like all his brothers, though he doesn’t mind a snack from time to time. This _vod_ , however, looked as if he ate below the necessary amount. Cody thinks his ribcage would’ve been visible if he was wearing the standard clone trooper blacks. What the hell were the _kaminiise_ feeding him?

“Dogma, eh?” Cody repeats when he comes back to his thoughts. “Nice to meet you, Dogma. I’m Cody, Marshal Commander of the 212th.”

Dogma blinks. He scans the commander up and down, before his eyes widen upon realizing who he was, and he clutches the datapad to his chest. “Commander Cody?” he exhales shakily. Cody nods, and sees the _little un_ ’s pupils constrict tighter in shock. “Y— you’re— oh stars, I am so sorry for interrupting your work, I can go right now if you want, it’s no problem—”

“Hey, what did I say?” Cody chuckles. He almost reaches out to place a hand on the _little un_ ’s shoulder, but when he remembers Dogma’s reaction to when he almost touched him, he changes his mind. “It’s alright, cadet. You’re one of the newer batches of Kamino, right?”

Dogma nods hesitantly. “Yes, sir! Juxta Squadron, deployed next week. Trained to be clone trooper specialist, reservist medic.”

Another young cadet deployed to the front next month. Cody connects the dots. “Juxta Squadron… you wouldn’t happen to know another clone trooper named Tup?”

“Oh, Tup?” Dogma confirms, tilting his head adorably. “He’s my twin brother. We were a part of the same batch, but we got transferred to higher squadron two years ago. Did he do anything, sir? If he did, I’m really sorry; he’s got a habit of disobeying authority.” His voice strings tight with worry.

“No, he didn’t,” Cody answers. “He told me he was being deployed next month, and I reckoned that you were in the same squadron as him. How’d you two change squads? You had a problem with the original?”

Suddenly, Dogma stiffens. “Apologies, sir, but that is classified information.” Another rehearsed line. But this one… it sounded far too personal. Far too reclusive to be taught by the _kaminiise_. Something must have happened — no clone cadet just moves up a squad for no reason.

Then Cody recognizes something in the way that Dogma holds himself. Too stiff to budge, back rigid and eyes forward ( though unlike Rex, Dogma preferred to keep his eyes trained on Cody’s forehead ), rambling apologies with easy embarrassment. Even how his facial expression was tight and overbearingly stoic, trying too hard to keep itself intact, was enough of a whiplash to him.

Dogma was practically a cadet Rex. A familiar stick-up-the- _shebs_ , easily embarrassed cadet Rex. Oh no, Cody loves him.

“Very well, then,” Commander Cody says. He notices that Dogma was staring at the _jetii’kad_ hanging from his belt, clearly obvious to anyone, but he didn’t point it out in case Dogma would once again turn a shade of lava crimson. _Red as Mustafar_ , he could almost laugh internally. “Are you almost finished with your work? I know you’re a reservist medic. I could use some help with the patients down the other rooms.”

“O— of course, sir!” Dogma answers, snapping at attention. “Just tell me what to do.”

In just a few more minutes, their task was finished. They had every patient safely escorted to their hiding bunkers in the case the droids come to the medbay. They finished cleaning all of the workspaces and getting the medical supplies ready for the injured that would no doubt reach the thousands. Once completed, Cody nods to Dogma with gratitude. “You work fast,” he compliments him. “I can see why you managed to finish your training so quickly.”

The cadet’s unnerved eyes then lighten upon the praise, his mouth pulled into a thin line as if he’s holding back an ecstatic squeal. “Thank you, sir,” he says, trying to keep himself composed. He even deepened his voice for effect.

( Cody notices that Dogma’s eyes appear different when he’s not directly under the fluorescents of the room. Though he never makes eye contact with Cody, mostly focusing on his forehead when he addresses him, they hold a weird gleam to them. Just like Tup’s. )

As if sensing something, Dogma’s head swivels instantaneously to face the open doorway of the room. It nearly makes Cody laugh — Wolffe used to do the same thing when he was an _adiik_ , though even the turns of his head weren’t a match for Dogma’s. A familiar voice rings out from the hallway outside. “Dogma! C’mon, we have to go! Rains have just stopped!”

Dogma sighs, and the stiffness of his shoulders releases for the minuscule of a moment. “Coming, Tup!” He turns back to Commander Cody. “I’m so sorry, sir. I need to go.”

“I understand, Dogma,” Cody tells him with a soft smile. “Take care of yourself, alright? And loosen up a bit. You’re a good kid.”

Dogma blinks, registering the compliment before nodding his head so rapidly Cody fears he’ll knock his brain out his skull. “Thank you, sir! Bye, sir! And I’m still really sorry!” He books it out the door and nearly bonks his cheek against the doorframe, before blushing furiously and leaving Cody’s sight. By the time that Cody looks out the door to check on him, him and Tup are gone. Alone save for a few other troopers marching around, Cody lets out a small chuckle. He hopes Dogma will be safe and sound with Tup in the oncoming battle.

He hears a small, hoarse laugh from behind him. “Got to love Dogma. Heh, I’ve never seen him that excited… since he got complimented on his good aim.”

_No way._

Cody swivels around to face the voice, and his face breaks into a wide grin. “99?”

The person in question stands before him, hunchbacked with paler skin than the rest of their _vode_ , wrinkles lined beneath eyes full of so much kindness that it made Cody’s heart swell up in joy. He wore his classic jumpsuit of baby blue, struggling to keep the array of blaster rifles elevated in his arms. The smile he had received from the other clone was so tender and caring, lips pulled into a lopsided grin. “How are you, Commander? You and your batch doing alright? I’ve been trying to find Rex but… I’ve been a little busy, heh.”

Cody softens, leaning slightly down level his gaze with 99. The old clone, with hands white as a snowflake and gaze as warm as a buzzing star, brought the best memories of Kamino to his mind. He hadn’t even thought of 99 when they were arriving at Tipoca, something he curses himself for forgetting. “I’m alright, 99. As for Rex, he’s going around right now, getting the men ready. How’ve you been? What have you been doing all these months?”

“You know, Commander,” 99 chuckles lightly. He seems to have so much fun saying Cody’s title. “Regular ol’ maintenance. You know Dekron? Pyro Squadron? Heard she was assigned under the 327th.”

Cody grins. He remembers Dekron — blond and jubilant, a batch beneath his own. The last time he had seen her, the kid had blown up a row of medical bacta tanks. He can already imagine Bly’s face of pure torture when the kid enters his battalion with a matchstick in her hand. “Oh, poor Bly.”

“Dekron ain’t that bad though,” 99 sympathizes, chucking kindly at the thought of his younger sister. “She just leaves a big mess.”

“And you know that better than anybody.”

“Of course I do.”

Cody smiles. At first, he doesn’t know whether or not to pursue his instincts, knowing that it would seem pretty out of character for him to act outside his own impulses. But he chooses to ignore the voice in his head as he gently takes up the firearms in 99’s arms to place on the ground to wrap his arms around 99 in a tight embrace. “Oh!” 99 perks up, but his stunned demeanor lasts for little while before he too wraps his bony arms around Cody’s middle, allowing the taller one to shadow him in his arms. They stay like that, Cody reminiscing in the smell of sweet precipitation from his _vod_.

“I missed you,” Cody tells 99 when he pulls away. “Really.”

99 only grins warm-heartedly, melting away what stress Cody had. “I missed you more, brother. Heard about what you’ve been doing, these past few months. Can’t say I’m surprised though — you’ve always had an affinity for _jetii’kad_ since you were a cadet.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Cody taunts, and that only makes 99 smile wider, eyes sparkling like roaring oceans. Cody would have stayed like that forever, just chatting with 99 for hours on end. Then he recalls something. If 99 was here, that meant… he attempts to hold back the eagerness in his tone when he asks the question. “Hey, is Hunter and his batch here by any chance?”

At that, 99 mellows out, sighing disappointedly. “No, not at the moment. They’re off-world, won’t be coming back till after the invasion.”

“Oh.” Cody’s mood falls.

“Sorry, _vod_ ,” 99 says with nothing but sad genuinity. “I know they’ve been dying to talk with you. Wrecker told me himself. Said he missed you a whole lot.”

Cody turns to 99 with skepticism, despite knowing that if there was anything 99 didn’t do, it was lying to his _aliit_. “Really?” 

“Of course, brother. Think they had been planning to talk with you when you would return, but the _kaminiise_ got worried. Sent them out on a training mission so they wouldn’t be caught in the attack.”

That made sense, but that didn’t seem to ease the disappointment in Cody’s chest. The last time he and the batch had talked was when Cody was approaching nine years. Since then, he’s hardly seen them come out their personal quarters on Tipoca. He’s pretty sure they were attempting to avoid him since it happened. Cody wanted nothing more than to knock some sense into them, telling them that he was never angry at them in the first place, but he guesses he can’t win at anything anymore.

“Oh, well…” Cody mumbles, “if you see them around, tell me. I need to talk with them.”

“I know, _vod_. I know they want to talk with you just as badly. Though they won’t admit it.”

Cody can’t help but smile. He’s about to ask more, about everything else that had been going along and what 99 had been doing all this time when the hallway is suddenly drenched in red. Scarlet lines the walls as the sirens above scream out in high decibels, causing Cody’s ears to ring and 99 to wince instinctively. Cody holds an ear with one hand with the other pressed up against his pauldron as the sound wails in his ears, eyes going wide.

For a few moments, Cody doesn’t know where he is. Registers the waves that rock against the columns of Tipoca as gravity, registers the red that drenches his surrounding as blood, registers the screams of the siren of his _vode_ , and _oh no, please don’t happen again, please don’t—_

Cody leans against the wall, catching his breath. No, he was fine. He can’t let this get to him. He won’t let it.

“Commander?” 99 questions him, coming forward to place a hand on Cody’s forearm to steady his _vod’ika_ . “ _Cody’vod_ , are you alright?”

Cody shoves down the panic that rises in his chest and pulls back on his bucket. “Yeah. Yeah, 99. C’mon, we have to leave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> autistic dogma, babey! him, tup, and 99 were so cute to write........ i love.............
> 
> translations:  
> lovik(e): knee(s)  
> kar'ta: heart  
> kovid: head  
> kyr'ad: corpse  
> yaim'ol: return, homecoming  
> aliit: family (clan)  
> kaminii(se): kaminoan(s)
> 
> i fumchkin cannot write mando'a. someone get me a guide book that isn't a dictionary.


	13. storming seas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Legs shoulder-width apart. Front foot facing forward. Back at an angle. Head held high, balance steady. Level body, rigid spine, eyes on target. Inhale, exhale. Grip blade tight. Focus.
> 
> “Ready, Rex ol’ boy?” he whispers to his fellow captain. His brother nods.
> 
> “Ready as you are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's pacing is wack as fuck! from now on, i absolutely refuse to rewatch tcw episodes for reference because i cannot! handle! the weird as chronological events that happen every episode! i will now only write based on my fucking memory and the occasional wookiepedia article. anyways, have this chapter that slowly degrades over time like a rotting sandwich.
> 
> no translations this time!

Cody pushes through the flood of troopers marching to their battle stations up and down the walls drenched in red. He and 99 shove past the others while Cody navigates his way down to the command center. “99, get down to the barracks and stay there!” Cody yells at his  _ vod _ as they sprint down the hallway, with Cody keeping his pace in line with the other’s limp. “You’ll be safe down there!” 

“But I need to help!” 99 exclaims. “What about supplies?”

“It’s dangerous out here!” Cody shouts at him with a shake of the head. “It’s not safe to be out here in the open. Just get down to the barracks, keep the cadets in line. Go!”

His strict and steel voice manages to break his command into 99’s head. His brother nods, albeit his own lips are pulled in a frown and his eyes are filled with a sheen that bounds to come out, and he splits off from Cody, heading down towards where the barrack were. Cody makes sure he’s out of sight before continuing his way.

Cody finally reaches the command center, breaking through the entrance and finding Lama Su, Shaak Ti, and General Kenobi gathered around the blue hologram of the planet. “What is it?” Cody demands as he storms into the room, taking his place in front of the floating image to make his own inspection of the holo. General Kenobi merely gestures towards a portion of the map, where Cody can see a fleet of Separatist starships coming closer to the barricade wrapped around Kamino. He narrows his eyes while observing the scene just as Captain Rex enters the room.

There are several main cruisers of the fleet with a few smaller ships taking up their rears, heading straight for the Republic blockade that consisted of the cruiser they had arrived on and other supply ships. The fleet is… small. In a regular invasion, there would have been an amass of ships surrounding the entire planet — but here, there were only around dozens that only seemed the size of Tipoca City. To have such a small number in the fleet would have been a stupid move to make, especially with a target as large and important as Kamino.

No, Grievous was too smart for this. Something was clearly wrong.

The commander turns to the men organized around the holoscreens surrounding the small room. “Shore up our defenses.” They oblige immediately, tapping away at their screens while Cody scoots over to Shaak Ti. “General, something is off.”

Shaak Ti seems to have the same skepticisms as he does as she observes the approaching shuttles, frowning with deep thought. “Yes, the fleet is not as large as I inspected,” she agrees. She regards the other strategists in the room. “Begin the airstrike.”

General Skywalker, who had favored pursuing the battle while the rest of the commanding officers resided within their command center, and his men meet up with Grievous’ fleet above Tipoca, and the shots of their cannons at one another fly from across the hologram. The command ship seems to trail back and allow the other ships to form a shield around it, the Republic’s defenses shooting at them until their stabilizers are fried. A few of Grievous’ transports take critical hits, their metal carcasses falling to the planet below upon detonation from the Republic’s fire. The command ship remained intact while the rest of the ships were downed one-by-one down to the oceans of Kamino. It’s upon seeing the debris that Cody’s scowl deepens. The strategy the Separatists were exhibiting was strange. Too careless to be of Grievous’ own.

_ Warning!  _ The intercom shouts from above.  _ Falling debris! _

“Grievous is sacrificing his transports,” Cody mutters to Rex, whose own gaze is trained at the image on the holo. “Protecting his ship from the gunfire.”

Rex crosses his arms. “I’ve read Grievous’ strategies before. This isn’t too far off from how he usually performs but…with an operation like this? Something’s not right.”

General Skywalker comms them from his starship out in space, currently battling with Grievous’ fleet.  _ “I’m going to press the attack, Master,” _ he voices from the communicator on Kenobi’s wrist plate.

“No, Anakin, wait,” General Kenobi objects. His auburn eyebrows are knit as he glares at the holoimage. “It’s too easy. Grievous would not attack so recklessly, especially when it comes to Kamino.”

_ “But Master, the battle’s up here. Not down there.” _

Rex then perks up on a realization. He taps on a point on the hologram. “Sir, the debris seems to be concentrated right here in this area. They’re all only a few klicks from one another.”

General Kenobi eyes glitter, and he turns to his wrist comm once more. “Don’t be so sure, my former apprentice. The debris of the fallen Separatist ships must be the key.”

Shaak Ti regards Obi-Wan with a puzzled gaze. “What are you thinking?”

“I think,” Kenobi says with a playful expression, “I’d like to go for a swim.”

Cody understands what he’s planning and places his hands on his hips, fixating a judgemental look at his general. “Don’t tell me you'll be going alone, General.”

The  _ Jetii _ gives him only a sympathetic smile. “Sorry, my dear. I am afraid I cannot allow you to put yourself in danger’s way. I think it would be better if I go down there by myself.”

“Alright then,” Cody responds. “Then I’ll go down to the hangar. Rex, you and Shaak Ti stay here to run the command center while I’m gone.”

“Cody!” Rex grunts with surprise. General Kenobi frowns with concern at Cody.

“Commander, forgive me for my objection, but—”

“There are hundreds of troops gathered down at the hangar at this very second,” Cody interrupts him, much to the amusement of Shaak Ti, who hides a smile behind a careful hand. “If you’re right, and there  _ is _ something going down near the base, it’s best that I go down there and keep them safe.”

Obi-Wan opens his mouth once more, about to object further when Cody cuts him off again. “ _ Trust in me _ , General. Go on your investigation.”

With the trust between them on the line, General Kenobi doesn’t argue. He purses his lips together and nods hesitantly before exiting out the room, heading to the hangar to access the submarines. Upon his leave, Captain Rex turns to Cody. “I’m coming with you.”

Cody is understandably baffled. “What?”

“Just because you got morse  _ mirshe _ than General Kenobi doesn’t mean that you’re exempt from getting hurt,” Rex tells him, voice gruff and stubborn. “I’m coming with you, whether you like it or not.”

Cody, at first, wants to argue, but he knows that when Rex makes up his mind, he’s willing to stick up for his decision. Especially when it came to Cody. But the commander doesn’t want another incident like Saleucami. He’s been babying his  _ vod’ika _ ever since the mission, so afraid of him getting hurt that he frequently requested that General Kenobi take up a few more missions with Torrent Company so that he would be able to protect him. He knows his fear is irrational, but Cody cares too much about Rex, and he absolutely refuses to let him be in the way of danger ever since that accident with the snipers.

But he knows that no matter where they went, there would always be danger around the corner. Cody’s not an idiot. And neither is Rex. 

“Fine!” Cody sighs in defeat. “But don’t go running off my sight, alright?”

“I got it,  _ Cody’vod _ .”

As they’re about to exit the room, Shaak Ti places her hand atop Cody’s shoulder pad. “Stay safe out there, Commander. Both of you. And may the Force be with you.” Her expression is kind, genuine, and it stirs those warm feelings that erupt in his chest when she so much as smiles at him. He thinks, in the back of his head, that she would have been an amazing plus to his training days back then, especially during his ARC training.

The commander nods. He and Rex exit the room into the chaos in the halls, clones of all ranks flying up and down preparing their defenses, the majority of them heading down to the hangar at the front gates of Tipoca. They move with the crowd, shouting at their men as they pass to get them to their battle positions in quick haste. “Move it, all of you!” Rex yells, and the troops around him pick up their pace. “On the double!”

They reach the area where majority of the clones assigned to Kamino were packed, building makeshift blockades around the back to prevent the Separatists from making it down to Kamino’s halls. They find Commander Havoc, from Gree and Thorn’s batch Cody remembers, shouting orders at the other troopers as they scattered themselves around the hangar. Cody approaches him while Rex goes on to speak with the other ARCs, taking his side amongst the chaos that was occurring around them. The sirens and red flashes of the lights continue to permeate throughout the ginormous space.

“Commander Havoc!” he yells to him. The commander turns to him, taken aback by his sudden appearance.

“Cody?” he asks him. “I thought you and Captain Rex would be down at the command center.”

“Change of plans,” Cody tells him. “General Kenobi suspects the assault is not coming from above.”

“It’s not? You mean from below us, in the ocean?”

“Precisely.” Cody absentmindedly assists one of the cadets that had been lost in the swarm of clones, hauling her to her feet and sending her down to the barracks over yonder. “I suspect you fellas need all the help you can get.”

He knows that Havoc’s smirking at him from beneath his bucket. “Well, it’ll be nice to see you in action for the first time. I’m going to need two more men, I have an assignment for them if the general’s suspicions are correct. You got any?”

Cody hums when he remembers the two troopers that had come with them to Kamino as well, who had chatted with Cody up on the cruiser as they were deployed to the watery world. “I’ve got two. Rex, call up your boys!” Rex understands who he means immediately. He taps on his communicator to access the channel between him and the two men had created months back. 

“Echo, Fives, come in.”

_ “This is Clone Trooper Fives,”  _ a voice resonates from the speaker, clear as day.  _ “Echo is here with me. What do you need, sir?” _

“Commander Havoc wants to see you,” Cody comes closer to answer them just before Kamino’s facility  _ rocks _ , the entire base shuddering under a sudden weight from one of the domes experiencing a heavy force. The commanders and captain struggle to regain their balance. Cody grabs Rex’s wrist to speak into the comm with frantic urgency. “Get down here as fast as you can!”

_ “Right away, sir!” _

“What the hell was that?” Havoc asks him, but Cody shakes his head dismissively. He knows what it is — the assault. It seems Kenobi’s suspicions were correct. It must be the underwater assault, but from what type of craft remained to be explained to him.

He receives a message from General Kenobi after Rex and Havoc head to their posts. The Jedi Master’s voice is urgent, exhausted. There is a weird sound in the background, akin to the call of the aiwha that the Kaminoans often rode back and forth between their cities. Cody is sure that General Kenobi had either purposefully or accidentally destroyed the Kamino sub that he had taken down to the waters below, and he can’t even bring himself to be surprised when Kenobi confirms it. Nonetheless, the general gives him the run-down — the Separatists had been assembling assault craft down in the depths of Kamino, and they have already begun to make their ways towards Tipoca. Cody acknowledges this and thanks the general, before shouting out at a crowd of  _ verde _ behind a section of barricade. “Close the bay doors!” They follow his orders, and the large durasteel doors begin to slide shut to obscure the gray skies outside.

The building shudders even more, like something titanic was crawling over its roof, causing the floor beneath them to quake under the immense pressure. One of the craft, he suspects, jumps from the ocean and makes a quaking impact right above the roof of the hangar bay, causing the entire room to shake violently. Cody keeps his eyes trained forward as he nears back towards the troopers’ barricades where Rex has his pistols unholstered. The  _ verde _ all have their weapons ready, blasters and rifles and miniguns trained on the slowly-closing entranceway. Just as the doors close, Cody catches the sight of metallic tentacles, gleaming bronze and inciting both dread and adrenaline within him, grabbing onto the edge of the platform and hauling itself up to level with the room. The doors close before it manages to break inside.

An ARC Trooper behind him raises his hand in a  _ wait _ signal to the troops. Cody remains in front of them, becoming their extra barricade. He reaches down to his belt and unclips Iuya’s saber. The hilt falls easily into his palm, weightless and sizzling with the same energy that burns in his veins. He tosses it up to grab at it properly, activating it to allow the golden blade to unsheathe itself from within the metal, facing towards where the mysterious craft resides outside the room.

_ Legs shoulder-width apart. Front foot facing forward. Back at an angle. Head held high, balance steady. Level body, rigid spine, eyes on target. Inhale, exhale. Grip blade tight. Focus. _

“Ready, Rex ol’ boy?” he whispers to his fellow captain. His brother nods.

“Ready as you are.”

For a few quick moments, the room is drenched in an eerie silence save for the blare of the alarms. He remains still, as do the soldiers, as time ceases to a grueling halt. Nothing happens in those few seconds, the calm before the storm, the viper about to strike. And Cody waits, waits with bated breath. He’s not going to hesitate for a moment. He adjusts his stance, holds the blade in a trained stance, and exhales.

He hears the grueling of machinery before a beak, metallic and hideous, pierces straight through the bay doors.

Another beak plunges itself straight through the ceiling, displacing the metal around it as it lowered itself in line with the hangar. Upon the second breach, the troopers begin to shoot — blue fire rains down on the contraptions, but neither are penetrated by the array. A long tentacle slithers through the opening between the hull doors and swipes at a group of troopers gathered on the right, their bodies crushed as they are flung towards the wall. They come a few inches closer before opening their golden beaks, revealing rows and rows of aqua droids hooked up to two bars each. The bars push out the contraptions, hides gleaming a disgusting silver, and deposits them on the ground. Hitting the metal floor, they hold up their arm cannons, flames charging within the gas cylinder and firing upon the manmade barricade. A few clankers are shot down, but most remained upright as they shot at the  _ verde _ gathered in the back.

Cody doesn’t hesitate. He takes a few moments to gauge the numbers of aqua droids — more than a dozen, he can be sure of that. He twirls his lightsaber in his hand before sprinting at the approaching droids. They see his approach and aim their own cannons at him, but Cody merely deflects the blasts they rain upon him, blade ricocheting the glowing rods of light back into their chests and head. He dashes toward the closest droid — one of the first who had been dropped off, and cuts it in an upward diagonal, spinning around to plunge his lightsaber deep through another’s side. He kicks out behind him to knock back another droid and ducks beneath more fire, slashing through more of their ranks.

It was difficult to keep all the troops alive while trying to cut down the approaching numbers. The beak plunged through the roof opens its own beak, allowing the aquadroids hiding inside to fall to the floor and continue the invasion, appearing at Cody’s backside while he was occupied with the first wave. Cody curses out loud, seeing that they have once again taken interest in the troops firing on them, managing to take down around ten of his brothers before he could intervene. Cody slides across the floor, knee pads kicking up sparks against the gray, using his momentum to spin himself and slash through dozens of droids with his saber. When he comes out the other side, he deflects the blaster fire and carries on with but a singe to his helmet and shin.

He found no sign of Grievous yet. Much stranger than the small numbers of the fleet above. He had expected Grievous to be a part of the main invasion at the entrance of Tipoca City, but he could find no silhouette of the warmongering general. That could  _ not _ be right. Grievous was far too self-important to invade anywhere else but the entrance. Nevertheless, he keeps fighting, keeping the troops behind the blockade as alive as he could. He twirls his saber around almost like a dancer, splitting and cutting and even kicking in a few instances, ducking beneath the shots of  _ beskar’ade  _ and deflecting them back before they could hit his brethren, who have become more daring with his help that they leaned further from their barricades. 

Cody decapitates one of the aqua droids’ heads and throws his lightsaber up into the air, the blade deactivating with no hand to hold it. He then runs up the decapitated droid’s body and leaps up to grab his lightsaber in mid-air, activating it before landing on the shoulders of another clanker, plunging it straight through its circuits. He jumps from droid to droid, cutting them down one by one until their numbers are reduced.

When he returns to the barricade of crates for momentary cover and a small break, Havoc’s head pivots towards him. “Damn, Commander!”

“Shut it, Havoc,” Cody tells. He absentmindedly deflects another shot aimed straight for the ARC Trooper’s head. “You got any grenades?”

Havoc shook his head. “We used them all up. We’re down considerably.”

Cody curses. 99 was right, supplies were scarce. “Well, keep firing! I’ll try to—”

“Commander!”

Cody looks up to find Rex who had retreated to his side from his own placement of the barricade, dual pistols held in both his hands. “What is it, Rex?” Cody asks him.

“I just got a call from the men down at the rooftops. They need assistance. The clankers are gaining an advantage.”

Cody nods and places a hand on Commander Havoc’s shoulder. “Stay here! Hold your line and keep your distance away!”

Havoc nods. “Good luck out there, Commander!”

( That’s the last time Cody sees Commander Havoc alive. )

“Come on, Rex!” Cody shouts at his  _ vod’ika _ , grabbing the younger’s hand before he could protest and holding out his saber in the other, charging through the droids filing into the space.

Cody plunges his lightsaber through clanker hides while Rex aims his free pistol to shoot them point-blank, aim deadly as the hand of vengeance. They reach the breach in the doors and leap through the opening. Cody penetrates and drags his saber through the metal of the craft, then plants his foot on the side of it to haul himself and Rex onto the rooftop. They are subject to the sight of the mechanical monstrosities once they reach the peak of the dome, each of their design akin to the ones of a giant squid, perched or crawling across the domes of the buildings with spindly arms, crushing troopers underneath its dreadful weight. He could see rows upon rows of aquadroids filtering through the metal walkways of Kamino, their fire aimed at the support systems of the buildings as they advanced on Tipoca. There were far too many to count. 

“Rex, where did the men say they needed help?” he asks his  _ vod’ika _ . Rex points towards a section of roof close to their area, an open space where  _ verde _ were falling by the hundreds. There were a few of the craft perched atop its ground, depositing their own reinforcements.

“You know, we could have just gone through the hallway,” Rex comments. Cody swipes his saber through one of the tentacles of the craft injected into the rooftop before it’s able to knock them off the dome, giving Rex a mere glance from beneath his bucket.

“This is the quicker way,” he says. “And where’s the fun in a hallway?” 

He can hear Rex snort under his breath. His brother grabs onto him and holds tight before they're both sliding down the slope of the dome, Cody’s lightsaber slowing their fall as they made their descent towards the men below.

  
  


The two of them worked as a team. They alternated between leading the charge and assisting one another and the others behind, kicking at the droids that got too close to the other and to the men they were assisting. Rex shoots down  _ beskar’ade _ who aim their blasters at Cody’s unsuspecting head, and in turn Cody slices down the clankers that close in on Rex from behind. They read one another without even needing to speak, using signals and noddings that the other immediately recognized and followed. Cody could reminisce about the times he and Rex worked on training sims together back on Kamino, when Rex had advanced to a higher training program and joined Cody on many of their exercises. If it were any other situation, he would feel pride about it.

“Cody, duck!” Rex shouts before chucking a grenade a troop handed him before at the droids that have grouped up behind the commander, detonating immediately when it comes in contact with one of them. With the first of the wave blown into bits and the others winded, Cody takes the chance to cut through all of them and move towards the large squid contraption, leaping on top of it and plunging his blade deep into it before it could continue its own assault on the men. “Great job!”

Cody hops down from on top of the contraption when his comm beeps.  _ “Commander Cody!”  _ He could recognize the voice. Him and the other commander had established a comm channel only a few before. He answers it as he returns to Rex’s side. 

“This is Commander Cody, here with Captain Rex,” he says. “What do you need?”

_ “It’s— it’s Grievous! He’s pushing through our lines!” _

Cody goes slack. He doesn’t even see the droid running at him from his peripheral, merely kicking it in the chest and lifting up his leg to axe kick it straight through its glowing red eye. For a few minutes, he feels nothing. Then the heat builds. “Send your coordinates,” he demands.

Colt does, the sound of blaster fire down one of the hallways of Kamino hissing through the comm as he does so.  _ “Hurry! We can’t hold him back for long!”  _

“I’ll be right there.” Cody shuts off his comm and turns to Rex. “Stay here and push the offensive! I’ll head down to help Colt!”

He could almost hear Rex scowling under his bucket. “B—”

“No time,  _ vod’ika _ !” Cody tells him. He does not listen to Rex’s calls as he sprints down to the entrance into the building to find Grievous, too fast for the other to follow. He can’t let him be caught up in whatever Grievous is doing down below. This is Cody’s battle, not his.

The memories of Tiika resurface as he makes his way down to Colt’s given coordinates. There had to be dozens upon dozens of troopers scattered on the ground, sprawled out like discarded toys, their chests ripped open from an unseen force and their legs amputated from their hips. They line the scarlet hallways, hunched over as they lay on walls unconscious or worse; blaster holes singed through their plastoid chestplates, eyes gouged out from beneath their cracked visors. Cody’s breath halts at the sight of the corpses lined the hallways and grounds, almost in a direct mirror to what had happened months ago — even the circumstances were the same. Grievous invading, Grievous killing. He feels nauseous as he picks through the bodies, but opts to keep his pace as he turns a corner towards his fellow commander.

He’s treated, then, to the sight of Commander Colt. Hanging in the air by an invisible hand, blaster discarded like the piles left deserted on the floor. He’s choking, gargling for breath as his legs kick out from beneath him. The culprit? A woman with skin the shade of alabaster and eyes glinting like vibroknives, grinning maniacally as she slowly crushes his Colt’s windpipe. Behind her, Cody could see from the other end of the hallway a mass of more aquadroids, only watching as the disgusting show of power continues before them. 

Cody recognizes the woman’s face. The same face from that holo of the transmission they had intercepted on the way here, the face that Wolffe often claimed to glower at him in his nightmares, the face that Rex drifts his gaze away from after his experience on Teth. Cody knows what she did, everything she had done to his brothers. She’s not personal in the way Grievous was to him, but after every bit of suffering she had caused his  _ vode _ , its a personal enough grudge to make him want to strike at her too.

“ **Hey!** ” He screams out with all the air in his lungs, forcing the woman to lose her concentration. Colt drops near-dead on the floor, gasping for oxygen as his body collides with the durasteel. Cody takes that as an opportunity to rush forward and clash his blade with the pale-skinned woman who unsheathes her own, striking at her a few times before their swords interlock with one another. 

“Who—?” Ventress regards him with a stunned visage, before her eye tics in a realization of who he was. “The  _ defect _ ?”

Taking advantage of her stupor, he reels back a leg to kick at her chest. The woman goes flying through the air but somersaults in mid-air, falling onto her hands and coming back upright. She unsheathes her second blade, twirling them as she snarls at him.

Cody kneels down next down to Colt to check his pulse. He breathes a sigh of relief when he finds one, albeit too fast for his liking. A bruise had begun to form at the base of the commander’s neck from his crushed windpipe, but otherwise, he was going to make it. He’s about to once more take up his blade and face the perpetrator responsible for his brother’s agony when he hears the familiar voice resonate from within the pack of droids gathered at the end of the corridor. “You again?”

Cody’s heart stills. His head shoots up to level with the silhouette of a titan who had suddenly appeared among the ranks of aqua droids, head nearly grazing the ceiling as he stands up to full height. He towers over everyone like a looming shadow clothed in a cape of white, this cape tattered and floating with the wind of the vents. Cody’s hand slacks on the nape of Colt’s neck. 

He taps on his comm to whisper that he needed medical to his coordinates stat. Then he rises from his kneel and activates his lightsaber, letting the blade drench the world once more.

“Ventress,” the man across hisses out like a conniving serpent. “Go find the DNA Chamber as I instructed. I will deal with the commander.”

Ventress gives the general a confused look, and for a moment Cody wishes she would stay. Just so he would have a chance to drive his blade straight through her eye socket. Unfortunately, all she does is give him a look that causes his insides to writhe in disgust. She leaves them, and upon the man’s orders, the other aqua droids file out the opposite way down the hall. The Kaleesh then regards Cody with almost an amused look, eyes glinting with amusement at the other’s stance, his entire body is drenched in nothing was crimson.

_ ( It’s that night again. When Grievous plunges through the vents and gives Cody a cold-hearted stare, diving his sword deep into Vexer’s chest before he could even manage out a scream— ) _

“Commander,” Grievous greets him in a raspy drawl. “It is nice to have you—”

Cody doesn’t let him finish. He charges forward and brings up his blade down on Grievous’ head, of which the latter instantly blocks with a carefully hidden pair of sabers. Cody throws everything he can at him, their blades clashing with one another as sparks rang from each hit, the buzzing of their gleaming weapons drowning out the endless sirens around him. Cody pushes down the panic that sets in him when he fights from the flush of memories grabbing at him, choosing instead to focus on his anger, the  _ rage _ that sets in him upon the sight of the monster thinking he can step here in his home, on  _ his _ planet with  _ his _ brethren. He shouldn’t be scared. He’s angry, he’s hurt, especially after Wooley, and this time he’s going to make Grievous  _ pay _ .

“You are not going to let me finish?” Grievous questions him as Cody unleashes a series of spins that grate into the floor, the tiles of pure white throwing up sparks as he does so. 

“You don’t deserve to,” Cody answers.

At that, Grievous cackles. “A little clone who likes to play with Jedi weapons. How ironic.”

Cody grits his teeth and they clash once more. Cody implements the training he’s been receiving from the Jedi for weeks, that and the training he’s always known his whole life. Grievous’ swipes miss at his head, Cody far more lethal in terms of size and agility. 

He reaches down for his blaster at some point and shoots directly at Grievous, who deflects it at Cody, who promptly directs it back to him. Grievous, unfortunately, dodges it and cuts the muzzle off of Cody’s rifle, and delivers a bruising kick to the latter’s chest. Cody goes flying into the wall at the end of the corridor but wastes no time in using the momentum of his legs to jump back up into an upright position. He sees Grievous charge at him, so he plants his foot on the wall to launch himself at the charging  _ shabuir _ , and he knees him right in the face. It hurts like hell, but it’s worth it when the monster stumbles with a grunt. Cody then grabs his rifle without the muzzle and slams it into Grievous’ metal cheek. Then he discards the dented metal and continues the fight.

Somehow, he and Grievous make it to the bridge of Kamino, the open air salty and fresh like the singing flare of their  _ jetii’kade _ . “You have gotten much better,” Grievous hums with intrigue. He does not even seem winded by Cody’s kicks to his face, each roundhouse blocked before they can make an impact.

_ You haven’t changed a bit _ , Cody wants to answer, but he doesn’t want to give Grievous the satisfaction of conversation. As they fight, he can recognize something about Grievous’ Jedi-like fighting style — it’s not a Jedi fighting style. He could recognize the form that Obi-Wan had told him belonged to Count Dooku, Form III, and a few other forms that bled right through his strikes; but he did not fight in a particular style. Neither did Cody, at least not yet, but Grievous’ serpentine bladework was raw and unseen to any of the Jedi before. Another reason why so many had fallen, as they have stuck too much with technique and not on improvisation. Grievous fights dirty and ruthless. He appropriates the technique of the Jedi, but never commits fully to it. A copycat of sorts.

Cody fights with the same ruthlessness the general wields, unleashing a series of kicks to his gut that push him further back towards the edge of the bridge with each hit. He ignores the ache in his legs as he arcs his saber at the man, blade spinning so fast it had become golden circles of fire, and focuses on his target. Never hesitating with each swing, never faltering each strike and drive.

That’s when he hears someone. A cadet. From behind. “Commander—?”

Cody’s head swivels towards the noise and catches sight of a lone cadet standing there, paralyzed as he sees the battle occurring before his very eyes. He hesitates, and that’s all Grievous needs to gain the upper hand. The cyborg switches their positions and shoves Commander Cody into the low-rising wall, nearly sending him careening over the edge hanging above the depths of the sea. Fortunately, he keeps a grip on his saber, and he manages to block the incoming hit from Grievous horrendous green saber. He grinds his teeth as the man pushes an extra weight on him, forcing him to lay horizontal across the edge of the building. Grievous tilts his blade downward, dangerously close to Commander Cody’s head, threatening to slice it in half.

He couldn’t hold for long. In only a few moments, Grievous could slice his face into halves or unsheathe another of his weapon stash to pierce Cody in the gut, or perhaps force him to teeter from the drop until he collided into the oceans below. Cody searches for an escape route in his head when— 

“Hey, clanker!”

Something clunks against the side of Grievous’ face, causing the demon to sneer in confusion. He picks up the spherical object from the floor with narrowed eyes. There is a red light, blinking on its top. Cody knows what it is immediately. He kicks Grievous off of him just in time for the grenade to detonate, and Grievous’ entire form is enveloped into a black cloud of fire and smoke with a singular boom.

He turns toward the cadet from before, and finds the clone troopers Fives and Echo racing towards him with a bunch of other cadets in tow, which only serves Cody’s confusion. Judging by the voice, it was apparent that it had been Fives who had thrown that grenade against Grievous' head. Next to his twin, Echo unholsters a sniper rifle from his back and aims it directly at the plume of smoke that gathers at the edge of the wall. And behind them… 

“ _ 99? _ ” Cody suddenly yells out when he recognizes the anomaly among the cadets, nursing the single cadet that had distracted Cody and herding the others by his side. 99’s head shoots up to look towards him, almost as perplexed as Cody was by the sight of his  _ ori’vod _ . “What in the  _ hell _ are you doing out—?”

He hears a roar from the darkness of smoke, and he shoves Fives and Echo out the way just in time before Grievous leaps out from the gray clouds of smoke. Cody lifts up his blade to parry the strike, feet digging into the floor as the force of Grievous’ body shoves him back. Echo quickly recovers from his stupor, and aims his sniper rifle at the monster’s visage, firing two shots that graze the jutting tusks from the sides of his faceplate. That aggravates his opponent further. The battle resumes, and Cody doesn’t bother with turning his head back to the others as him and the general clash their weaponry. “All of you! To the barracks! Now!”

They don’t need to be told twice. Fives and Echo bellow at the others to retreat into the nearby entranceway of the facility. Cody remains occupied with Grievous, releasing a spinning strike at the monster. But Grievous only cackles with a hoarse cough from the explosion that had detonated on his chest.

“I did not take you for a fool as well, Commander,” he taunts with a raspy drawl. Just the grit of his voice is enough to have Cody seething by the end of it. The commander lunges at him but Grievous easily blocks him, stomping on his chest and forcing Cody to the ground with. The floor beneath cracks upon the strength of impact. Cody gasps out, struggling against the clawed talons on his chest as Grievous applies more pressure, looming over him like a phantom of death. “My men are currently diverting towards the barracks. It isn’t long until your soldiers will be wiped out, just as your unborn brothers will die upon my blade. You will not live long enough to see it, fortunately. But isn’t it horrid enough to be the one to blame?”

Cody freezes beneath his grasp as the words settle. Then anger forms in the pit of his stomach. He activates his saber once more — and with a quick swipe, he slices through Grievous’ ankle, severing his foot. The man teeters off-balance so Cody is able to push him off, allowing his lungs to take in the air he had lacked from the encounter. He doesn’t have time to tackle the demon once more, as Grievous once more morphs into that horrid arachnid-like mechanism, crawling down the bridge with all five of his remaining limbs.

Cody, growling in frustration and rancor, rises to his feet and is about to follow Grievous down the walkway when his feet become stone, stopping him dead in his tracks.

_ They’re heading towards the barracks. _

Cody feels conflicted. He wants nothing more than to chase down that bastard, satiate that vengeance he’s been training for around weeks, to make him suffer as he did, to fix the wrongs he made on Tiika and Saleucami. It had been set into stone upon the attack, it had been strengthened after Wooley’s awakening, it had been his only mindset for hours since arrival. He could go follow him down his direction, face him one-to-one again with Grievous at a disadvantage, and fill himself with that adrenaline he had whenever he held this blade. He wants to, badly. He can’t let him get away again, not after last time.

But Cody… Cody can’t leave his brothers behind. He refuses to. He’s not having more fall under his watch — he’s already lost so many. He can’t chase after Grievous when he’s being needed.

Cody taps on his wrist gauntlet and brings it up to his face. He sends a message to the channel he and General Kenobi share, telling the general that Grievous is heading towards the hangar at the moment and that he should move swiftly to capture him. Obi-Wan, in all his frustrating personality, questions Cody why he is not pursuing him himself — Cody answers by cutting off their signal. Finally, he comms the best person he needs at the moment, and the perfect person for the job.

“Captain Rex, come in.”

Rex answers immediately.  _ “What is it?” _

The words that fall from his lips are hard to force out, the frustration and exhaustion audible in all its glory. But nonetheless, they fall.

“Meet me down at the barracks,” Cody grits out. “I need your help.”

They blast through the droids that have begun to already make their rounds towards the barracks, slipping through the sliding doors just as Cody decapitates the last clanker that attempts to barrel through the entrance. That had been the first wave — with the way the Separatist army is moving around the base, they would arrive in at most half an hour to wipe them clean. Cody slices off one of the pod beds near them and Rex uses it as a temporary barricade. It would not certainly block out any intruders, but it was a blockade nonetheless.

Their entrance had been quiet in the case of a droid army being present within the barracks, but fortunately, there was none to be seen. Cody can see down the line of crevices in the walls beneath the pod beds a few individuals residing inside one of the changing chambers, three leaning against the ladder, along with younger voices from beneath the chamber. Not droids. Brethren. Crowded around, huddled and terrified. Cody could recognize the hunched form of 99, the young and spruce selves of Fives and Echo, and the familiar voices of the cadets he had ogle at him just hours before and the cadets that were up on the bridge before. Deep in panicked conversation.

“What are we going to do?” one of the cadets asks with a defeated tone, his breath shaky and labored from the run towards the barracks. “There’s too many of them!”

“A Separatist victory,” 99 mutters, his voice trembling with unease at well, despite how fearless the older could be, “means death… for all of us. Spruce is right. What are we going to do?”

Cody gives Rex a knowing glance. They discard their buckets to reveal the humanity beneath, and the two of them arrive to the group to introduce themselves. “We  _ fight _ ,” Cody says.

Immediately the men turn to the two commanding officers with boggled eyes and agape jaws, seeing for their very eyes the leaders of this assault right in front of them. Echo, Fives, and 99 practically beam at them. The cadets packed against the walls and chairs are numerous, curling against one another and leaning against the lockers with exhaustion turned into awe. The oldest ones reside the opposite side of the ladder across from Fives and Echo — two of them, both of which Cody recognizes from hours before. Dogma and Tup, the latter of which was comforting a terrified little cadet in his arms. All of them face the two, and Rex takes that as his opportunity to speak.

“We got your call for help,” Rex says. “We have a plan, but we’re going to need all the firepower we need if we want to live by the end of tonight.”

“But our training’s not finished,” one of the cadets frowns. “All we have is basic shooting skills. That’s all.”

“Me and Dogma are still cadets,” Tup adds, trading a glance with his twin brother nervously. “We don’t have the experience like you have.”

Then, before Cody or Rex could refute their words back to them, Fives comes to the center of the circle, addressing the miniature crowd with a stoic voice. “Look around!” he tells them, determination burning in his tone. “We’re one and the same, same heart, same blood.” To prove his point, he points directly at Dogma and Tup, the former of whom seems to jolt even more upright than he stood at a default. “Your training is in your blood. And my blood’s boiling for a fight.”

“This is our home,” Echo continues, coming forward to stand next to Fives and interlace their fingers in brotherly solidarity. “This is our war.”

“What about weapons?” another cadet questions them.

“The armory.” At his words, the group turns to 99 attentively. “It’s just a few corridors away, here in the barracks. I… I can retrieve all the firepower that we need! So… who wants to blast some droids!” The smile on 99’s face is triumphant, one that causes Cody’s face to melt as he looks upon him. The passion in his eyes — it brings back the memories between them back when Cody had been a cadet and 99 was just a small reject, when they’d sit together and 99 would tell him of his wishes to be a soldier. Just like his brethren. The sight almost makes him forget of 99 disobeying his direct orders and appearing out on the bridge.

99 begins to lead Cody and Rex to gather the supplies they needed while the cadets stayed here with the oldest of the bunch. Before he leaves, Cody places a hand on Fives’ and Echo’s shoulders, smiling at them. “Nice speech.”

Echo is too stunned for words to respond. Fives, once he recovers from his initial stupor of the compliment, grins at him. “Thank you, sir!”

They arrive at the armory. Clone trooper buckets line the walls like skulls above hung blaster rifles, crates were stock full of grenades and dual pistols — all the weapons to their disposal was present in the room, and he scans the room with an eager glint in his eyes at all the ammunition they needed. “Here it is!” 99 exclaims. “Everything we need is here!”

“Excellent work, 99,” Rex tells him. Cody can practically hear the soft smile on Rex’s face as he goes over to one of the crates to gather supply.

99 discards his empty pack and takes up a new one, stock full of grenades and droid poppers, clearly knowing his way around the equipment. It reminds Cody of what had only happened moments before, and he approaches him for it. “99, what were you doing out there? Why did you leave the barracks?”

“I, uh, went around,” 99 answers cooly, chuckling with endearing embarrassment as he loaded more things into his pack. “Gave supplies to the troops at the front.”

“ _ What _ ?” Cody stresses when he nearly drops one of the droid poppers, voice rising with his panic. “How come I didn’t see you before? I— do you know how dangerous it is to be out there? Grievous was right there and— Kark, 99, you could have gotten killed—!”

99 hushes him when he places his hands around Cody’s fingers that had begun to shake, his pale hands warm against the blacks of his gloves that shuts Cody up immediately. The trooper gives him such a loving smile that it makes Cody’s heart ache, the worry subsiding for only a second before riling up again. “I’m sorry, Cody,” 99 apologizes, and Cody wants to tell him that he doesn’t need to. “But Echo’s right. This is our home, this is our fight. And, heh, I know I may not look like it. But I’m a soldier too. I can help. Ask Fives and Echo, they say I saved their lives.”

Cody can’t help but smile softly. “You did?”

99 nods. “So… I know I can be  _ atin _ sometimes, and that you worry a lot for everyone. Especially after what happened.”

Cody’s face immediately falls. “You… you know about Tiika?”

“Heard the word right as you arrived,” 99 answers. “I’m sorry, about everything that happened. I know you’ve lost so many  _ vode _ . But we… we have a fight to win.” He curls his fist up in the air with a smile. “We’re not going to lose any more brothers. Not tonight.”

Cody wants to argue further, maybe keep 99 locked somewhere safe with the rest of the  _ vode _ while he charges head-on to the army. He didn’t like their plan despite how circumstances forced it to be, didn’t like how he wasn’t the one taking on the droids alone, but when he sees the fire and compassion in 99’s eyes, he can’t refute. It reminds him too much of Iuya’s optimistic gaze or Wooley’s energetic eyes, how they lit up any room they walked into. Cody doesn’t want to risk letting another person he loves once again be placed back into the field of combat, but he reminds himself  _ that he can protect him this time, he can make things right. _

So Cody nods. “Right. Yeah. You can stop staring at us, Rex.”

He can hear Rex do the worst scoff in the history of scoffs. “I’m not.”

Cody receives a beep on his comlink from Fives and Echo. “Now hurry up!” Cody addresses them, and they all resume their grab of the supplies. “The droids have almost reached the barracks. Let’s get into position!” They run out the armory and down the red-lit corridor towards the barracks.

They organize everyone into their positions when they return. The oldest of the  _ vode _ — Tup, Dogma, Fives, Echo, Rex and Cody — would serve the first line of defense against the droids while 99 and the younger cadets were hidden inside their pod beds. Cody issues each of the kids a blaster rifle, making sure each of their sizes were accounted for. “Do  _ not _ come out of the pod without my word,” Cody instructs them, his helmet discarded in order to glare at each of them directly in the eyes “Do  _ not _ , and I mean  _ do not _ , try to engage the enemy head-on. Stay up there, shoot at them, dive back in if you need to. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir!” all of them answer in unison. Cody feels his expression soften at that. He ruffles the buzzed hair of one of the girl’s in the batch, who grins at him, and watches the cadets retreat back up the ladders towards their bunks. Then he returns to Rex and the others, who huddle against the door. He unsheathes his lightsaber and places himself in front of their little huddle, holding it with a steady grip. He’ll provide their defense while the rest of them provide the firepower.

“You two good?” Fives questions Tup and Dogma as Rex and Cody remove the makeshift barricade from the sliding door. The two troopers nod, shaking as they readied their own blasters. Echo brings the two of them close to his side, giving them a semblance of comfort as he readied his own weapon. Rex holds his hand out, signaling for them to be quiet. Outside the door, they could hear it — the marching droids, clanking footsteps, heading their way. Cody makes sure the cadets are secure up in their pod beds before readying his stance. He can’t let one hit go amiss. Not one.

There was only quiet within the barracks. Cody could hear his own breathing beneath his helmet, filled with tension yet retaining calm. He shifts his fingers over the hilt of his weapon. The clankers come closer. Just a few more steps and—

Rex slams open the panel connected to the door, revealing an infantry of battle droids outside. The troopers open fire. Around four or five droids are down by the time they regain their senses, launching a barrage of blaster bolts at the group, but Cody deflects each one with precision, knocking them back into their cylindrical heads.  _ “Blast them!”  _ one of the B-1s yell out, pointing towards them. The droids continue to push the offensive, forcing the  _ verde _ to slowly retreat back through the barracks just as they had planned. Cody continues to deflect the shots while his  _ vode’ika _ fire against the infantry that comes advancing through the door.

Cody and the others are backed up further and further down the barracks. Fives and Tup take cover behind one stack of crates while Echo and Dogma reside behind another. Rex and Cody continue down the hallway and find 99 hidden within one of the chambers, unloading his pack filled to the brim with grenades. He carefully tosses one of the shells to Rex. “Almost there,” Cody whispers to him. The infantry passes by the gaggle of pod beds above. Rex nods, takes in a deep breath, and chucks his grenade straight at an abandoned crate assortment. It detonates, ruining the droid’s filing formation. Now’s their chance.

“Cadets,  **now!** ” Rex screams into his gauntlet.

The pod beds lurch open from their place in their walls, hosting the dozen of cadets with rifles ready, and they immediately barrage the  _ beskar’ade _ below. The clankers wind around to see the commotion, but are quickly snuffed out before they have a chance to retaliate. The ones who do try either miss the cadets’ heads entirely or fire just as the  _ adiik  _ retreats back into their pod. Cody beckons to 99, who tosses him a grenade, and he dashes forward.

With the aid of the distraction of the cadets and 99’s bombs, Cody’s job is easier. He arcs his lightsaber around, attacking the clankers head-on and easily ducking the blasts from his brothers that hit their mark on the aqua droids filtering through the entrance, downing their numbers before they had a chance to aim at his men. Dogma and Tup have taken to climbing the ladders to assist with the troops on the high ground, firing on the droids above with clear accuracy akin to ones of snipers.

Then comes the second wave of the infiltrators in the form of commando droids, much more nimble than the others that had been coming through. Cody tries to take care of the ones that invade the space, but one dives between him and the door, making its way towards the ladder hosting one of the cadets. Cody shouts at all the  _ vode’ika _ to retreat back into their pod beds, but the commando droid is already at the top of the ladder next to the nearest cadet. Moving like a viper, Cody lunges himself up the ladder and grabs a hold of the commando droid’s foot, and makes a clean swipe through its torso. Its bottom half falls to the floor and Cody grabs onto one rung of the ladder, hauling himself up to check on the child. Spruce, he remembers. Timid eyes going wide at the sight of Cody.

“You good, kid?” Cody asks him. Spruce nods dazily.

“Yeah,” he answers. “Thanks, Commander!”

The numbers are still piling through, but with the rate of which they were being effective, it seems as if they may live through tonight. Cody tires after several minutes of dodging blaster bolts and severing limbs, so he leaps over the crate that Rex and 99 are behind. Further over, Fives and Echo provide the offensive while Cody rests, firing like beasts against the enemy with roaring cries. Cody sees Echo silently toss Fives a grenade, and as if their minds are linked together, Fives chucks it straight at the enemy, destroying an entire row of Super Battle Droids before they could bypass their invisible blockade.

“Last one, Commander,” Rex whispers to him as he tosses Cody the last grenade they had taken from the armory. “Make it count.” Cody tosses the grenade up and down in his hand to gauge his weight, and glances over to analyze the enemy. Still too many, but this was their last one, and they needed to make it all worth it—

Suddenly, 99 rises from his hiding position, carrying his pack in his arms. “I’ll go get more!”

Cody jolts upright in his crouch. “99, you can’t—!” Rex screams out, but their brother is already up and moving.

“I’m a soldier!” 99 yells at them. “Like you!”

His  _ ori’vod _ runs as fast he could down the hall, limping in each of his steps with blaster fire beginning to train on his form. Cody forgets all his exhaustion. Forgets of the sweat and tire pouring from him because he can’t lose him,  _ he can’t lose 99 _ . He retreats from his hiding space much to Rex’s own protests but doesn’t care when he puts himself before the approaching droids, activating his saber once more and deflecting their blasts in order to give 99 the coverage he needed to get back to the armory. The others down the droids with their shots, but it’s not enough. And Cody can’t attack them directly without a stray shot being a possibility.

But Cody falters in one of his swings. He looks on in horror as the crimson bolt slashes against the side of 99’s knee, causing the older to drop his back and fall to the ground. A wretched sound releases from Cody’s mouth, in line with Echo screech of “99!  _ No! _ ” The commander sheathes his weapon and sprints over to his brother, falling to his knees by his side in a frantic daze. His heartstrings are pulled violently when 99 groans agonizingly, slowly pushing himself back upright while Cody assists him. He’s about to grab onto him and bring him to the nearest cover before he gets hurt further when he hears a whir behind him, mechanical and hollow. By the time he turns around, there’s a cylindrical muzzle of a pistol pressed up against his forehead. 

In another instance, he would not have enough time to unsheathe his weapon again, the droid already having pulled the trigger before he could regain his senses. 

But… the clanker never pulls the trigger. 

It’s… malfunctioning. It does not move, bronze-gilded face stuck in place and trigger hand still with the gun in its hand. Cody doesn’t understand what’s happening. Even less so when the clanker’s blaster begins to  _ shake _ against his forehead, as if it’s being held down by an invisible force. 

But he doesn’t bother figuring it out once he sees the opportunity. He unsheathes his lightsaber and cuts through the muzzle before the  _ beskar’ad _ could regain its control, then a diagonal line through its torso. Its remains clank against the ground. Behind it, the other droids that had been in a stupor from the strange malfunctioning droid regain their own senses, and raise their blasters to down the two of them on their own. Cody feels someone grab the grenade in his other hand. 99, with a sonorous war cry, reels back his arm and chucks the grenade as far as he can, dead center in the infantry of droids. It detonates immediately, and blows the multitude to pieces, leaving ashy remnants in the ground in its wake. There is nothing but a smoking crater, and the corpses of the clankers are scattered.

The droids that filter into the room afterward are dealt with.

By the end, Cody is panting heavily, his blood pumping and ears rushing and breaths labored, the humidity beneath his helmet so great that he tugs off his sunbonnet to take in the fresh air. He looks at 99, still nursing his chafed knee that sizzles disgustingly, but otherwise is relatively unharmed, smiling with awe at the decimated remains of the clankers. Cody stumbles over his words for a few moments, trying to find what to say, before throwing all caution to the wind and wrapping his arms around the 99’s fragile form with a relieved laugh. “99! You were amazing!”

“I— I was?” 99 stammers, clearly unused to this kind of attention that made Cody’s heart both ache and soar. “I was good?”

“Of course you were!” Rex exclaims as he comes forward to pat the older trooper on the back with a guffaw. Cody’s rarely seen Rex smile this much. “You showed bravery out there, 99.”

“WOOH!”

Then come Fives and Echo, who Cody and Rex make ways for so they too could wrap their arms around 99, who laughs endearingly under their praise and embraces. “You were so cool! Throwing that grenade? Never seen anything like it!” “We’re so proud of you  _ vod _ .” “Heh, you all are too nice.”

Cody stands over them with a smile, watching 99 pale cheek’s flush with joy as Echo and Fives fawn over his performance. Rex sides up next to him, gently tapping the armor plates of the backs of their fingers together, reminding Cody of the battle they had just pulled through.  _ They did it _ , Cody internally reminisces. That’s when he hears it. A series of whimpers from behind him. Frowning, he turns to see the fuss, and his body is frozen at the spot.

Tup and Dogma are currently nursing one of the cadets’ heads in their joint laps, the other children crowding around the body are staring with aghast eyes. Cody quickly nudges Rex’s shoulder to turn around, and the captain’s puzzled face morphs into horror when he witnesses the scene. Fives, Echo, and 99 follow. Cody feels his body move on autopilot, coming closer and closer to the small group, begging for the worst to not be true. But it’s not. In the center of the circle, in the laps of Tup and Dogma, is one of the young cadets with eyes held shut, a blaster wound sizzling from the center of his chest. Raven curls frame his small and chubby face. The first cadet that had recognized Cody back when he visited them, hours before.

Cody kneels next to Dogma, who gently lifts up the body of his  _ adiik _ for Cody to take with trembling hands. “He was hit,” Dogma tells him numbly. “Right before the attack ended. Couldn’t get to him in time.”

Cody takes in a shuddering breath, and he places a gloved hand on the younger’s cheek that used to be flushed with crimson joy. Cold. So cold. He checks the pulse, but unlike Colt, he comes up empty. Cody doesn’t allow himself to cry, knowing that if he did it would only worsen the situation, and the cadets around him were suffering too much to have to see their own commander falling apart to his own tears. Yet his face contorts in an anguished expression as he caresses the small face of the cadet in his lap, features relaxed as if he were resting, the blaster wound still smoking from where the clanker had pierced him in the chest. Cody can’t cry, but he writhes inside.

The one time he looks away, and a cadet takes the fall.

Then, Spruce, standing by his side, breaks down into a fit of sobs. The cadet kneels to the ground as crystalline tears flow down his cheeks, and Cody shifts the weight of the deceased child in order to accommodate for the other cadet, rubbing comforting circles against the  _ little un _ ’s back as he cries into Cody’s chest plate. The cadets are like dominos, curling up near Cody’s hold, nursing their heads against his lap and the body of their deceased brother. Tup buries his head into the crook of Dogma’s neck, attempting to keep his tears at bay; Dogma himself remains upright, but though he barely shifts in his seat, Cody can hear him scooch just an inch closer to him. Only a little, but it’s just enough.

Then he feels arms wrap around his neck. 99, jubilant irises overcome with grief, a crystalline tear falling from his eye that Cody wants nothing more than to brush away. Cody presses his head against his  _ ori’vod _ ’s while Rex, Fives, and Echo kneel around the circle, wrapping their arms around the kids in a protective barricade. A pile of clones, surviving all odds, yet still mourning their dead. Cody cradles the head of the young clone closer to his chest and shuts his eyes tight, soothing Spruce’s whimpers, and falls victim to the embrace of the  _ aliit _ that surrounds him.

  
  


Things after the battle moved like a blur.

Though the guilt and grief Cody had experienced from losing one of their  _ vode _ still remained in his chest, Kamino was practically buzzing. Troopers gathered around popped bottles of alcohol that they had smuggled aboard their cruiser, throwing their arms around each other and hollering into the open sea air. Many had approached Captain Rex and Commander Cody, giving them sly grins and pats on the back, congratulating them on their victory and performance. A few of their  _ vode’ika _ approached them as well, and Cody felt his heart thrum happily when he gave the little ones piggy-back rides around the white halls, their tiny giggles permeating throughout the space.

He isn’t surprised when General Kenobi tells him that General Grievous had once again managed to escape. He can’t be at this point. All he feels is the resentment, pooling in his gut. He did not regret going to the barracks to save his  _ vode _ , not at all, but… there is still the little voice in the back of his head, saying that if he followed Grievous, he may have stopped even more casualties that had already reached the hundreds.

Despite that, not all things were bad. “Both of you showed valor out there,” Captain Rex says to Fives and Echo out in the hangar bay, Cody standing idle while Rex paces in front of the two troopers. “Real courage. Remind me of me, actually.”

“Echo, Fives,” Cody tells them, biting back a smile, “for your bravery — and saving my life — you’re both officially being made ARC Troopers.”

The expressions on Fives and Echo’s faces make Cody burst with fondness, their stunned faces becoming ecstatic grins. The commander’s almost jealous of Rex for hogging them to his company first before Cody would be able to induct them into the 212th. But he can tell they’re happy to be under his younger brother’s command — even more so now that they have achieved what they knew from their past conversations to be their dreams. Though Cody could only imagine the heel-turn of their feeling when they are subject to the extensive and grueling pain of their training that Cody and Rex had experienced in the past. He thinks they’ll do well. The four of them salute each other, and Cody keeps the moment locked in a special place in his brain.

Departure doesn’t come for an hour or more, so Cody goes around Tipoca City to clear up any other affairs he might have. He helps with the body disposal, assists Shaak Ti with further contingency plans for if the Separatists invade Kamino again. And says his goodbyes to Dogma and Tup in the medical bay, aiding the wounded after the battle. “You two take care of yourselves,” Cody tells them with a smile that catches the two younger ones off-guard. Dogma blushes furiously and stammers a word of gratitude as he stands stiff and uncomfortable, prompting Tup to lax and wrap his arm around his brother, smiling at Commander Cody. Now that he sees it, the two of them couldn’t be more different. Really reminds him of himself and Rex back in their cadet days. He says his goodbyes to them, and the two of them manage little waves before Cody disappears from view.

Now, only a few minutes before they’re ready to return to the cruiser, Cody sits on one of the bunks in a separate section of the barracks in Tipoca, far from where he had been fighting hours before. The other cadets run around and fake-fight with one another, watching invisible blasters and yelling  _ pew! pew! _ at one another. Cody keeps an eye on them to make sure none of them get hurt. Situated in his lap is one of the more younger cadets, only two years old, wearing the standard blues like the others of his age. He allows the  _ adiik _ to hold his helmet, who mulls over the deteriorating paint job with a wide smile and traces nubby hands over the sunset orange. Cody keeps the cadet propped up, gently bouncing his leg and making the  _ little un  _ giggle.

Then, as Cody is quietly humming to the child in his lap, knowing that no one else could hear it but them, he sees 99 limping his way down the corridor towards him. He was in much better shape, practically glowing despite the jutting bacta patch that sticks out from the side of his knee. “Cody!”

Cody’s head swivels towards 99. The child in his lap mimics his movements, and giggles happily when Cody raises an amused eyebrow at him. “What is it, 99?”

99 grins. “Hunter’s back.”

That immediately has Cody rising to action. He carefully places the cadet back on the sheets of the pod bed, much to the younger’s pout, but he comforts him with a small Keldabe Kiss that makes his little  _ vod _ laugh. His heart warms and aches at the same time. He stands from his seat to follow 99 out the barracks, who tells him that the batch had arrived only a couple of minutes ago, and was residing in their private hangar located near the back entranceway of Tipoca.

Cody could feel his heart, thrumming fast. This is the first time they were contacting one another in a long time. The first time he sees them again. “Nervous?” 99 questions slyly.

“Eh,” Cody attempts to lie, but he knows that 99 could easily see through him, and takes no rancor in that fact. They near the transparisteel door at the end of the hallway. “I’ll be fine. Hey… where did you get that?”

“Hm! Oh!” His  _ ori’vod _ looks down at the medallion hanging from the lapel of his jumpsuit, and he takes it off to inspect it fondly. “This… well, it was a gift from Hevy. You know him. He said he would return to Kamino to take it back but… well, Fives and Echo told me the news.”

Cody’s heart wrenches, recalling the attack on the Rishi Moon Base during the first few months of the war, and of Hevy’s sacrifice. One of the first deaths he had seen to actually hit home for him. He places a gloves hand on 99’s hunched back, offering warmth to ease the other’s eyes glossed in nostalgia and sadness. “He would’ve been proud, y’know. Real proud. You were a real hero out there. Say, if you don’t mind the stresses of ARC training, I could pull some strings for you…”

At that, 99 chortles, a boisterous and warm laugh. They reach the end of the corridor leading to the hangar outside, where the  _ genet _ clouds above were already bustling with rain. The platform outside hosts a ship, the  _ Havoc Marauder _ , painted in a sleek black with its side door opening up to a ramp. Descending down the ramp were four troopers. Nostalgia is like a wave over him. It takes all of Cody’s willpower not to lunge out the door and hug all of the men gathering at the base of the ship.

Luckily, he doesn’t have to. “C’mon, Cody,” 99 laughs. “They’ve been waiting for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: i was originally going to kill off 99 but i rewatched the episode again and went "nvm, i love him." also because i wanted to end on a light-hearted note. for now. :)
> 
> we're not going to talk about tcw season finale. or we will. idk.
> 
> rex, this entire chapter: i am standing.


	14. roasting meat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “C’mon,” he says to him. “I kept your seat warm for you.”
> 
> “Gross.”
> 
> Cody has the audacity to laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay! so, just a quick question but do any of you have a problem with the chapter length? because i do not know if you guys are okay with reading the equivalent of 10k every chapter and i really don't want to put that on you. also i am going so feral with myself, i really need rest but i refuse to so... yeah... this chapter's wack but honestly every other chapter is wack already so.

General Kenobi had told Cody the day before to meet up with him in the meditation chambers down at the Jedi Temple at the given hour sharp, very deliberate about Cody’s timing. He was precise in his directions — come to the training session in full gear, with all his equipment, warmed up from stretches and morning workouts for their session. “Do not be late,” Obi-Wan told him for the hundredth time that day. “Be ready to go by the time you arrive. It is crucial that you are prepared when we begin your session tomorrow.”

So Cody’s understandably a little more than miffed when he arrives at the Jedi Temple prepared and opens the door to the meditation chambers, only to find that Obi-Wan Kenobi was nowhere to be found.

He’s even  _ more _ off-guard from the outcome when he recognizes the only person in the room.

Mace Windu sits atop one of the cushions lining the room, legs neatly crossed as he meditates in quiet. His face, shrouded in the darkness that is penetrated by the thin strips of light filtering through the blinds of the viewports on the walls, is calm and serene, clearly deep in thought. Cody’s breath immediately hitches upon the sight, because he is fairly certain he did not mishear the room code when Obi-Wan had given him, and  _ kark, if Obi-Wan had set him up for a joke or something he was going to throw him into a Sarlacc Pit. _

Before he has the chance of closing the door and making a haste escape, Mace Windu’s voice echoes from the meditation chamber. “Commander Cody,” he greets. His eyes remain closed, and his gaze still faces towards the wall away from Cody. “It is nice to have you here.”

“Uh, sorry, General,” Cody apologizes. He scans the dimly lit space some more to assure his suspicions are correct, taking in the amber light of the morning Coruscant sun that permeates through the window shutters, dousing a mysterious essence over the dark room. All of the circular cushions are empty save for the general’s. No Kenobi in sight. “Have you seen, General Kenobi? He told me to meet him here.”

“Ah, yes, I was about to find you upon that,” Windu muses. “He had to go on an urgent errand with Skywalker. He did not have enough time to send you a message so he asked me to relay you his whereabouts personally.”

“Oh,” Cody mumbles. “Then… where did he go?”

“He would not tell me. Though, judging from his frantic tone, I’m sure it has something to do with picking up another one of Anakin’s messes.”

“Not much of a surprise,” Cody grumbles. He can’t help but be irked at the circumstances. It was rare for Kenobi to cancel their training sessions, even more so to be unable to tell him about it. Though when it came to General Skywalker, there was always a bending of rules involved. Cody knows first-hand what the general is capable of with just his two hands, and though he’s effective, he’s honestly surprised Obi-Wan is still breathing to this day. Now Cody had to look for another way to pass the time before he and Wooley meet up for their trip to Dex’s during lunch, and Cody could bear the news on him.

“Come sit with me, Commander,” Mace Windu suddenly says, and the words have Cody turning to him with a bewildered look. One interlaced with dread. Fuck.

“Uh… are you sure?” Cody questions him. “I don’t want to intrude, you seem pretty busy—”

“I insist,” Windu interrupts him. “With your training canceled, I suspect that you have nothing else planned in the meantime. We wouldn’t want you getting bored.”

Cody weighs his options. The general clearly knew he was not going to be busy for a while, and he had no one else back at base to spend this new free-time with. He was not keen on being alone with Mace Windu of all people, despite all the nice things he has done for Cody in an attempt to earn his trust, but he knows that refusing the offer may be taken by Windu as a direct insult to his name. He hasn’t meditated in a while anyway, been too busy with missions with Ghost Company and the 212th to focus on anything else, so he guesses a few minutes with the Jedi Master would not hurt too bad. Just for a few minutes, nothing more.

He sits himself in a chair opposite to Master Windu, ignoring the chairs open right next to the man, and crosses his legs in a mimicry of Windu’s. Folds his hands neatly in his lap, takes in a deep breath, before shutting his eyes closed and allowing his mind to settle.

A few minutes into the small meditation session together, Mace Windu speaks up. “Have you ever meditated before, Commander?”

Cody’s eyes flutter open to face Windu, who still remains in deep concentration. “Uh, yes,” he hesitates in answering. “General Kenobi introduced it to me.”

Mace Windu hums in intrigue, but doesn’t follow up on it. Cody waits for him to speak again but shrugs it off when the Jedi Master shows no sign of speaking up again, and closes his eyes once more to fall back into his meditation.

Except now, falling back into the peace is difficult. Cody feels… uncomfortable. He shifts in his seat in an attempt to retreat back into his meditation but finds no solace, his skin itching uncomfortably under his blacks. It’s the same feeling he had back at those simulations he had back in his cadet days, when the Kaminoans trained him and his batch for resistance against torture and interrogation. Strapped to a metal slab, arms and legs bound, peered over by the Kaminoans as they prodded him for answers. Skin sweltering beneath the heat of the lamp they hang over his head, dark spots dancing across his vision. It feels as if there is something hanging in the air, something unaddressed and adding an uncomfortable layer of tension over him. He needs to speak of it. But he can’t find the right words.

He could hear Mace Windu’s breathing from across him. His gut churns, and his fingers twitch defensively towards the lightsaber strapped to his belt. That is when Mace Windu’s voice breaks once more through the veil of tense silence.

“I sense… unease in you, Commander.”

Cody’s eyes snap open.  _ I sense unease in you, Commander. _ Those had been the same words Windu had told Cody the night of the funeral, the night they talked in the hallways of Coruscant, filling Cody with deep grief and agony that was as unbearable as a stab in the back. Such an understatement, such a glance over his pain. When Cody responds this time, he is unable to hold back the acidity in his tone. “I’m sorry, sir?”

“You’re signature in the Force,” Windu cooly explains. His calmness is inversely proportional to Cody’s irritation that grows within him. “It’s agitated. Restless. You are holding something back.”

Cody’s hands curl into fists upon the intrusion. “It’s rude to pry someone like that, General Windu,” he says coldly.

Windu’s eyes open, revealing dark brown irises ringed with ebony, unnatural yet humane enough. There is no offense in his eyes. Cody could almost say there was  _ sympathy _ in them, but he’s too angry to confirm it with himself. The man merely studies his face for a few moments, further riling up due to his emotionless facade and lack of words. “My apologies, Commander. I did not think you would take offense to that.”

_ Of course you wouldn’t _ , Cody bites back. If he said those words out loud, no doubt the action would land him deep into trouble, and he may never come back from it. He was practically walking on egg-shells nowadays, attempting to retain his composure and respect so the Council wouldn’t take away his right to own his weapon. Cody takes in a deep inhale, steadying himself as he exhales outward.

“It’s alright, sir,” he finally responds. “Let’s just go back to meditating.”

“Actually,” Mace Windu speaks up, rising from his seat on the couch to look down at Cody with an expression that could only mean trouble, “I think I know of a better way to ease your mind. Follow me.”

Mace Windu heads over to the sliding door on the side of the room, tapping on the panel to open it, where he slowly makes his way down the hall at a pace that would allow for Cody to catch up. Cody remains seated on the cushion, still registering the words, before rising from his seat as well and following the general’s path.

They arrive into what appears to be a sparring arena, where Cody and Kenobi had practiced bladework against one another a few times. It was a large, circular space with intricate patterns carved against the alabaster floor, diamond-shaped fluorescents jutting from the walls. Cody angles his gaze upward to stare in awe at a massive dome ceiling littered with stars, dancing across the roof over an array of royal violet and soft peach. They seem to follow Mace Windu when they enter the room, stopping over him when the  _ Jetii _ steps to the center of the arena, where an elegant circle in shades of buttercup and indigo remains.

“General Windu?” Cody calls to him, scanning over the room. “What are we doing here? General Kenobi is not here to train me.”

“I know,” Windu answers. He turns around to face Cody, hands folded behind his back. There is a slight tilt to his lips in his next works. “However, I have mentioned before that I am always free to teach you in his stead.”

The realization dawns on him. “You’re… going to give me a lesson?”

“Of course.” Mace Windu takes a step back from his place in the center of the circles, gesturing out in his hand to indicate that the floor was his. “You are free to decline. You can go about the rest of your day as you wish. But I  _ would _ like to see just how well General Kenobi’s commander fares in combat like he boasts you do.”

Though his words are light-hearted, Cody’s blood stirs with competitive fury. He adjusts his posture so that he was at bare eye-level with the taller man, tone cool. “Alright. I accept.”

“Great.” Without warning, Windu calls on the Force to lift his lightsaber up into his outstretched hand, twirling it between his fingertips and igniting the blade without even the press of a button. The sword is of an electrifying violet, a shade of darkness and moral ambiguity that has haunted him since its first appearance on the desert battlefield of Geonosis, the first battle of the Clone Wars. It gleams elegantly as the stars on the ceiling twinkle excitedly, warping around Windu in a circle. “Now,” Windu begins, “hit me.”

Cody blinks. “Excuse me?”

“Hit me,” Mace Windu repeats. He holds his  _ jetii’kad _ in both his hands, a defensive stance with the edge pointed towards Cody. “Strike me with all you have.”

Not the weirdest request he’s received from a general, but enough to confuse him nonetheless. Cody obliges, unclipping his own weapon from his belt. He activates it and twirls it in his hands, falling into an offensive stance.

They circle around one another. Cody takes the time to analyze the situation, trying to find what exactly the general is trying to gain from this encounter. Cody’s not stupid, and neither is Windu — he’s most likely doing all this to get him riled up or force information out of him, otherwise, he really does want to see what Cody is capable of. He scans Windu’s face, steady and focused, anticipating his attack with not a single twitch to indicate that he will make the first move.

Well, Cody was the one who signed up for this mess. He might as well play along for now.

“Come on,” Mace Windu calls out again to aggravate him further. “Strike me.”

Cody takes in a deep breath and charges forward, striking at Windu’s neck. As he had expected, Windu blocks it with his saber before it can decapitate it, so he spins around to place another strike at his chest. Windu blocks that one as well, and after the two or three strikes that come afterward, the Jedi locks the hilts of their sabers together to spin it and launch Cody’s blade up into the air. Cody ducks into a backward roll and catches it mid-air, activating it again and returning to his starting stance. Windu regards him with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re holding back,” he says. “I said  _ strike me _ .”

Holding back?  _ Holding back? _

Cody knew what game Windu was playing, knew what he was trying to do, yet his body still burns with the bitter acid that grows with each syllable from the general’s mouth. He feels his control seeping away despite how hard he keeps his walls up, his mouth filling with a bile leaving with a sour taste. The way Mace Windu regards him is with a face of challenge, trying to break his composure. He can’t let that happen. He can’t let that happen. He’s not going to allow Windu the satisfaction of breaking him.

He steadies himself, bouncing himself on the balls of his feet to warm himself up again before he lunges back into the fray, this time with teeth grinding against one another. He strikes, Windu blocks it. He bludgeons, Windu counteracts. Sparks fly with every clash of their weapons, violent purple and pure golden, causing the stars above to writhe in excitement as they parried and dodged one another. Cody strikes until his arms are burning and his mind is stuck in tunnel vision. He lands hit after hit against Windu’s saber, but the general’s talk continues to push him to his edge.

“Don’t hold back.”

_ Vrrb! _

“Channel your anger. Not as a hindrance but as a drive. Use it as your weapon.”

_ Vrrb! _

“Maintain control, but do not depend on it. Strike me. Again.”

The more Windu spoke, the more the frustration and confusion courses through his veins, and though he keeps his movements calculated and fine, they have become harsher and ferocious. Each slice of his weapon is more aggressive than the last. Cody was damn near  _ snarling _ with every move, eyes focused and trained with nothing but fire in his irises, propelling his entire body with every strike.

_ The battle rages across the arena. Soldiers dying left and right. Geonosian bugs torn into halves by blades of light. When Kote sees the Jedi descend into the battlefield, there is no hope or relief in his heart. Only fear. Horrid, choking fear plumped with dread. He does not like the way they hold their weapons, how their exteriors were devoid of emotion but calm, how their strikes were nothing like his mentor’s. They leave none in their wake despite the roles they played. _

_ He looks across the arena. _

Cody utilizes his entire body as his weapon. Every arc of his blade is followed with a spinning kick, a stomp to the knee, a shove to the side or a hilt to the gut. He even falls into a crouch and swipes his foot under Mace Windu’s own pair, and would have had the Jedi off-balance if he did not kick back upright to block Cody’s next hit. With each strike, Mace Windu’s calm facade is one of intrigue. Cody begins to aim at his neck.

_ He sees the violet saber ignite and rush towards Jango. _

Mace Windu does not hold back either. He lunges toward Cody at lightning speed, continuing to disarm Cody in several instances and forcing him to somersault back to retrieve it before it lands on the ground. He does not use the Force, merely his body and his weapon in an extension of it, applying bruising hits to Cody’s body that nearly has him crumpling. Cody, however, refuses to be downed. Cody loses all restraint, and his calculated swings fly like rings of fire.

**_“Buir!”_ ** _ Kote screams out, but it’s too late. _

In the last time their sabers clash with one another, Cody angles his blade so both of their lightsabers are impaled right through the floor. Then he releases one hand from the grip of his hilt, reels it back, and clocks Mace Windu right in the nose.

_ Jango’s head falls. Kote falls to his knees with it. _

Mace Windu is certainly disoriented from the hit, stumbling back, and Cody takes that as his chance. He knocks Windu’s blade out from his hand before grappling his legs around his neck, throttling him to the ground with the sudden force. He presses a knee against the Jedi Master’s chest, right in the center of his lungs, and holds his amber-colored blade right to the  _ Jetii _ ’s neck. Cody is sweating profusely, breathing fire from his straining lungs, eyes as infuriated as a cornered animal and a grip on the hilt of his blade as tight as  _ beskar _ .

He’s not going to kill Windu. He’s better than that. But in this state and at this moment, one single cut is all it could take. Just like it did with Jango. If Mace Windu showed no mercy towards his  _ buir _ , then he damn well didn’t have to do the same for him.

General Windu gazes up at him, blood running from his fractured nose. Staring into the eyes of a commander burdened by rage and madness, something that only  _ Grievous _ could ever rile out from him. For a few moments, the training arena is silent save for Cody’s labored breaths. Mace Windu does not say anything, returning Cody’s furious expression with one of calm. Cody holds the blade closer to his neck until it sizzled against Windu’s chin, challenging him to say something more. Anything at all. He knows he looks like a rabid animal, but Cody doesn’t give a damn.

Then, Windu says something that shatters that immediately.

“You blame me? Don’t you?”

Cody freezes above him, face falling into confusion. He deactivates his lightsaber, allowing it to hang at his hip. “What?”

“I’ve seen it in your eyes, Commander,” Mace Windu tells him. His voice is… different. Like how it was back the night of the funeral, telling Cody of all the memories him and his former Padawan shared. “I know how you look at me. You blame me for what happened. For what happened on Tiika.”

“No…” Cody’s words sound so fake he could cringe at them. “No, I don’t…”

“Yes, you do. You blame me. For what happened to Iuya. For what happened to Jango Fett.”

At the name, Cody’s chest constricts tightly. Everything swims up from the recesses of his mind, choking him as it fills up his throat, preventing him from speaking. There’s that look in Windu’s eyes again. The same look he had given Cody right before the funeral, the same solemn glint of his eyes that looked as if his insides were being torn apart. That had been the only indication that Windu had felt something about Iuya’s death, when Cody had become so riled over his calm when the commander was practically  _ dying  _ inside. He does not even have the strength or to tell Windu that he can’t say that name, that  _ that  _ name did not belong in his goddamn mouth.

“I know you’re angry at me, Cody,” Mace Windu continues. “You have the right to be. I am not holding anything against you. But… just know from deep in my heart, I apologize. For what I did, and for causing you pain.”

Pain? Cody had felt more than  _ pain _ . It was as if something had been torn right out his chest the night Jango died under the hands of someone he was meant to serve, so agonizing that he struggled with nightmares for weeks on end. It had killed something in Cody. He was practically his father, practically a part of Cody’s soul, he lived and  _ breathed _ near Jango. And Iuya… Windu didn’t know what it was like. To see her die right before his eyes, to be helpless when  _ he should’ve done something, anything _ . He didn’t know what it was like to lose someone who perfectly completed you and shaped you from clay, or someone so pure and good from an evil that saw no boundaries. He didn’t know what it felt like to lose everything.

Or… maybe he did. Windu had lost Iuya too. He’s probably lost a lot of people. He’s probably failed a lot of people. And unlike most people, he was owning up to his actions.

Cody averts Windu’s gaze. “Let’s get you patched up.”

The Jedi Master nods.

Mace Windu, with all due respect, looks hilarious with tissues shoved up his nose to prevent the streams of crimson blood cascading from his nostrils. Cody does feel a hint of guilt at breaking the man’s nose despite the fact they were sparring, and despite the fact that the action was a little satisfying to do. Cody sits at the bench by Windu’s side, hands folded in his lap while Windu dabs at the blood coming out from his nose.

“I do not know how I will explain this to the Jedi Council,” Mace Windu comments, grimacing at the sight of his own blood on the napkins Cody provided him. “No doubt they will question me why I suddenly have a broken nose out of nowhere.”

“Training accident,” Cody suggests with a shrug. “I’m… sorry about that, by the way.”

“It’s no issue, I _ am _ the one who pushed you to that point. Which I do apologize for as well. Besides, I think you enjoyed punching me in the nose.”

Cody fights down the smirk that edges it’s way onto his face, lips tilting upwards in a small smile. “Maybe.”

At that, Windu smiles. General Windu’s smiles were rare, Kenobi and Skywalker had told him that personally, and they were so infrequent that they only edged out in special cases. But in all of Cody’s interactions with the Jedi General, the man had smiled at him with every single one. Perhaps because of his care towards Iuya, or perhaps of his attributes that have gotten him this far in the war. There are many reasons in Cody’s mind, and to all of them, he does not know how to feel about it.

He definitely has not forgiven Windu yet. He can’t yet. The scars are still run, deep and fresh, and it would take a long while for him to truly be over the two incidents. It may take days, months, or even years to finally forgive Windu for that. But judging by the Jedi’s expression and words, he does not push him to. And that’s a step in the right direction.

“General Kenobi told me that you wanted to learn Vaapad,” Mace Windu comments.

Cody sighs. Of course his general would let it slip. “Unsurprising.”

“Indeed,” Windu chuckles. “Sometimes Obi-Wan lacks restraint in his words when he speaks up. Do you have any idea what Form VII entails?”

“It’s supposed to be the most aggressive form of lightsaber combat.”

“Precisely. I and Master Bulq created Vaapad, drawing inspiration from creatures of the same name that were native to the planet Sarapin. It’s a very difficult form to learn. Many students in the past had found the form to be unattractive. It dangerously scathes the edge of the Dark Side — if you were a Force user, it would be extremely challenging not to tilt towards the Dark. But… I do not think that will be an issue with you, Commander.”

Cody registers the words. He could barely believe what he was hearing. “You’re… offering to teach me Vaapad.”

Master Windu dabs at his nose some more, shrugging kindly. “I said my door was always open. I see the potential in you, Cody. It’s all in the way you fight. Precise, calculated, and lethal as well. I know first-hand just how effective you are in combat. Perhaps learning a few moves in Vaapad would aid you greatly in your journey. What do you say?”

Cody ponders over the words. Unlike before, when the prospect of Mace teaching him was an incredulous thought, Cody feels himself rise with eagerness at the opportunity. He wants to learn it. Since he had seen the form in black ink on those old and worn pages, ever since he and Grievous had their first duel out in the battlefield. Cody wants to learn it. He knows Vaapad is the thing that got Jango killed, that his mentor would be the man responsible for  _ buir _ ’s death but… Vaapad was vicious, ruthless, and perfectly controlled. It was how Cody liked to fight. And Jango always told him that if he was ever going to learn anything, he can’t let anything impede him from doing so. Maybe Cody can use Vaapad as a way of retaking back Jango for himself. Or just a more effective route to cutting off Grievous’ metal head.

“I…” he mulls over. Mace Windu waits for his answer with patient ears. “Yeah. Maybe just a few moves. That would be good.”

“Great.” Mace Windu tosses away his bloody tissues, checking the chronometer on his gauntlet to check the time. “We still have a lot of time. I won’t be anywhere until lunch. If you don’t have anything else, how about I begin your first lesson?”

Cody can’t help but snort. “I think we already had my first lesson when I broke your nose.”

“You know, for a second, I had thought you were sorry about that, but I suppose I can be wrong. Come.”

Cody follows Windu to the center of the circular room, standing before the Jedi Master. Windu inspects his condition and nods his head in satisfaction.

“Now, we start with your stance.”

Cody meets Wooley out at the landing strip of the Coruscant base, waiting for him as his taxi pulls up. Cody crawls over the seats to open up the rear door to the sight of the former rookie, up and about on his feet. He was wearing a new pair of plastoid  _ beskar’gam _ , pure white as pearls unlike the previous set that had been dented beyond repair. When Wooley had gotten this new armor, so shiny-like that it made Cody reminisce the first time his baby brother entered the 212th, he had to hold back a small sob at the sight. As was appropriate, Wooley had it painted over with the same design as it had been before, sheep across each shoulder guard.

“Hey,  _ vod _ ,” Wooley greets him. He still sounds pretty out of touch, voice only a few above a whisper. Otherwise he’s recovering the same pace Cody had after being discharged from the medical bay, albeit a little slower. The commander gestures for him to come inside with a nod of his head, smiling softly at him to ease the tension in the other’s shoulders. Wooley looks so scrawny under the bulky strips of armor.

“C’mon,” he says to him. “I kept your seat warm for you.”

“Gross.”

Cody has the audacity to laugh.

They take off from the hangar to merge into the nearby traffic. They descend from the heights of the skyscrapers of Coruscant to reach the lower parts of the Upper Levels, parking to the side of a small establishment on the side of a busy road. It appears as a small hole-in-the-wall diner; the other surface was painted with crimson and gray, and it billows black and gray smoke that he can smell right from the open taxi viewport. On one of the transparisteel windows located near the door is a neon crimson sign, reading  _ DEX _ in Aurebesh.

Cody tips their taxi driver, a Nautolan with skin green as kelp, who takes it and promptly winks at Cody. Luckily, Cody has enough endurance to not blush furiously on the spot. “C’mon,  _ Wool’ika _ ,” he nods to his younger brother. “Let’s check out this place.”

They walk over to the main entrance to take a peek at the diner’s interior. Cody had not expected it to be so clean within, turquoise paint lining the doors and tall dining chairs with furnished cushions perched against the bar by the nearby window, a contrast to the chimney spewing dangerous amounts of pollution and unclean gutters outside. Inside, brunch was brewing — Cody could hear the sizzle of saucepans and the whistle of a kettle. From the kitchen he could smell syrup and fresh meat slices, steamy and fresh from right out the pan. Freshly brewed coffee and even a few alcoholic beverages were being served out by waitress droids, zipping around and passing out plates of steak and egg. Many patrons line the booths located to the sides of the diner, loudly chatting with one another or reading the holonews on a tablet.

Cody glances at Wooley, who’s practically drooling at the sight of the many foods being put out from the grill that could be seen from the circular opening at the opposite wall, placed atop the counter for pickup. He can’t help but smirk. “You like it?”

“Holy shit.”

“You know, one of these days I’m going to have you put a credit in a jar every time you swear in front of me. C’mon, let’s get a booth.”

One of the waitress droids sees them as they enter, and brings them to one of the booths located by one of the windows, overlooking the busied street outside. Cody orders a steaming cup of coffee and Wooley orders a glass of OJ, to which the waitress nods and zips to the kitchen to prepare their drinks. The other customers there flash them looks, though nothing hostile; a few of them even nod in silent gratitude before going back to their meals.

Wooley sits opposite of him, looking outside towards the patrons making their way down the sidewalk. It is like he’s entranced, gaze lingering on the numerous species passing by the window, even going as far as to stare as a golden Togruta as they make their way towards the nearby market. “I’ve never seen so many species in one place before,” Wooley muses as he stares on with interest at the patrons.

Cody raises an eyebrow at him, not in judgement but amusement. “You’ve been to Kotha. Told me you’ve never seen a Wookie and Weequay in the same space before that day.”

“This is different,” Wooley states. “Here they’re actually talking with one another and not trying to shove pieces of glassware down each other’s throats.”

Cody hums. “Fair point.”

He observes Wooley as the younger takes in the sight of the patrons in the diner, invested in their different mannerisms and behavior like a young cadet. “General Kenobi’s friend owns this place, right? That’s how you found out about it?”

“Yeah,” Cody replies. He glances over to one of the service windows into the kitchen, but he doesn’t see the person Kenobi had described to him. “General Kenobi said he told Dex that we were coming so he could give us a ‘warm welcome’. Hopefully nothing too fancy.”

“Yeah, because you  _ hate _ fancy,” Wooley chuckles. Cody softens a little, and lightly flicks his  _ vod’ika _ ’s nose.

The waitress returns with their drinks, placing the mug of coffee in front of Cody and the glass of OJ in front of Wooley, but instead of taking down their orders she tells them to wait for the owner of the diner to speak with them personally. Cody assumes she means Dex. He thanks her before she zips away to attend to the other customers.

Wooley’s already halfway through his juice while Cody’s still blowing on his coffee. Cody fixes a look on him. “You know I’m paying, right?”

“Refills are free,” Wooley says. “I read the sign.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want you drowning in OJ by the time we get our food.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Sure.” Cody leans back, relaxing as much as he can into the metal of the booth with his crossed arms. “So… how’ve you been holding up?”

“Huh?” Wooley chokes after he takes in a large gulp of his drink, coughing harshly into his fist. Wooley grimaces in apology to Cody’s deadpan gaze. “Oh, I’ve been doing… okay? I guess. Had a few relapses here and there but Helix said I’ve been doing pretty good.”

“That’s good,” Cody says. “You think you’re ready for the next time you go out on the field?”

“Yeah. I’m fit to go on the next assignment Ghost Company has. Been getting some counseling, so. They told me I’d be fine.”

That was definitely good. Cody had refused counseling upon Kix’s offer — no matter how much the medic had insisted, he wouldn’t budge from his decision. He preferred to deal with it on his own, as he didn’t want more people to worry about him, and he was already so busy with his self-training that he didn’t have the time for anything else. He didn’t need counseling. He had the resistance training from Alpha-17 to get him back on his feet, quick and efficient. Wooley didn’t have that type of training, however, so Cody was glad he was getting some mental aid to ease the weariness in his facade.

Wooley falls quiet for a few minutes, one hand reaching up to furl at his shoulder pauldron mindlessly, gazing out the window in the busy streets swarming with pedestrians. Wooley looks so much older now. Despite how his armor shines like pristine crystals in the daytime, Cody could still almost see the ferocious dents in his plastoid, the ruptures in the  _ beskar’gam  _ from Grievous slamming him against the ground, flinging his near-lifeless body against the wall. He’s still suffering, grieving. Cody was too.

Silently, he reaches over and takes Wooley’s free hand in his, thumbing over his leather glove. Wooley perks up in surprise before flushing in embarrassment. “Sorry, Commander.”

“Cody,” Cody corrects him. “We don’t have rank out here.”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“You’re an  _ osik’ika _ , you know that?” Cody laughs and swats playfully at the other’s head, before he mellows out his tone, fixing a serious yet benevolent look on his baby brother. “Everything’s going to be okay. You’re a strong kid. You’ll make it through this, and I’m going to be here with you every step of the way. Soon you’ll be kicking clankers in the butt when you’re back on the field.”

Wooley smiles at him, full of that sunshine that Cody could always recognize, before it falls away into a slight smirk. “Like you do?” his  _ vod’ika  _ questions. “I’ve been hearing about you from the Battle of Kamino. You jumped on top of a building?”

“Several, actually. But you know I am  _ not _ letting you do that.”

“You let Captain Rex come with you.”

“You’re not a captain, are you?”

Wooley shrugs at him. “Maybe one day.”

“Sure,  _ vod’ika _ . Which reminds me—”

“Hey, you two!”

Cody and Wooley’s heads pivot towards a man walking down the aisle between the chairs towards their shared booth — a four-armed Besalisk male with a hairy mustache, growing above his puffered lips. He’s wearing a grease-stained shirt that is  _ way _ too small for his torso size and pants that hang way too low for Cody’s eyes. Along with his rugged and old-timer appearance, he exudes the smell of fresh bacon and burning grills. The man reaches their booth, flashing them both a crooked-toothed grin.

“I recognize ya both,” he states as he glances between his two patrons to identify them. “You’re Kenobi’s boys, right? My pal tol’ me you were stopping by for your break, asked me to giv’ ya a warm welcome!”

“That’s us,” Cody nods to him. “Dex, right?”

“That be me!” the Besalisk bellows with a throatily chortle. “Ah, I haven’t seen Kenobi in quite some time. I remember the day when I met ol’ Obi-Wan. Came in here, askin’ for a bottle of Phattro after a long day at the Temple. Said he needed to, uh, clear his mind.”

Wooley’s jaw goes slack with shock. “Seriously?”

Cody is equally perturbed. “ _ Phattro? _ He hates that stuff.”

“Oh, he does!” Dex chuckles. “Threw up in my ol’ gonk droid after a single sip. ‘ventually he settled for Ardees, comes over to grab a drink with me every once in a while. Say… you’re his commander, ain’tcha? You got a name?”

“I’m Cody.” He nods over to his little brother. “And this here is Wooley.”

“Wooley… like the name! You likin’ that glass of OJ, Wooley?”

The younger shrugs, though he’s practically glowing at the compliment. “Could settle for some Phattro though.”

“Absolutely not,” Cody says.

That has Dex releasing another large guffaw. He was clearly taking a liking to the former rookie in front of him, with the feeling reciprocated based on how Wooley awed at the Besalisk. Cody, in the meanwhile, was starting to warm up to him. Sure, Dex smelled of frying pan grease and he had to pull up the waist of his pants to prevent the entire diner from seeing his  _ shebs _ every five minutes, but other than that he appeared a pretty nice person. Very easy to conversate with. He could see why Obi-Wan kept communications with him or kept on coming back here for a drink.

“So, what’ll it be, boys?” Dex asks them, taking out a small datapad to take down their orders. “Oh, and don’t worry about paying. Everythin’s on the house.”

Cody blinks. “But sir, I have the money—”

“Eh, I get a couple dozen customers a day,” Dex shrugs. “It’s the least I can do for ‘yer service. And any friend of Kenobi is a friend of mine! Now, quit ya excuses, we got a new special on the menu.”

They give him their orders, and he comes back a few minutes later with their food, setting the plates down in front of them with a shining smile. “Enjoy!” he tells them before heading to conversate with the other customers, who were far more familiar with him, and hollered at him as he made his way towards their booths. Cody digs into the plate and nearly moans in delight at the taste of the fresh meat. Cooked medium well, hot on the tongue and lacking the dull, empty taste of the ration slabs they have to endure back at base. Wooley, meanwhile, becomes a rabid animal and chows down a quarter of his steak by the time Cody takes the first bite of his own. He doesn’t even have the energy to chastise him for it. The younger deserved this after being subject to eat clanker processed foods for several weeks.

Wooley’s eyes are practically glittering as he drawls about the taste. Cody snorts at the syrup that falls from his mouth, and chucks a napkin at him to clean it up. His  _ vod’ika _ blushes furiously, before immediately snapping back into his craze once he wipes his mouth to devour his meal.

Dex comes to check up on them a few times to check on their progress ( Cody is usually the one to relay the information, as whenever Wooley tries to answer, it is incoherent and it’s always with his mouth full ). Every time he comes over, the Besalisk seems to have a new story to tell every time, and he tells each of them with such enthusiasm that Cody’s sure that, unlike Kenobi, there was a truth to each tale. He told them of his prospecting days, of his family and how he came to open up his diner — Cody’s favorite stories, however, are the ones of General Kenobi and his many instances of making a fool of himself and getting absolutely  _ hammered _ . He easily inserts each new story into his memory for later, knowing that he’ll need to save it for later in the case that he needs to blackmail his dear general.

When they finish and take their leave, Dex bids them a nice farewell and even gives Wooley a warm four-armed hug. “Yer welcome back here anytime!” he exclaims as they exit out the doorway, flashing a toothy grin. “Oh, and tell Kenobi I said hi! You boys take care of yerselves, ya hear?”

“We will!” Wooley yells back. He leans in close to Cody once Dex retreats back into the diner, bumping their shoulders together. “You are taking me back here next break.”

Cody huffs a bit of laughter, wrapping a careful arm around Wooley’s shoulder, tugging him close. “Sure,  _ vod’ika _ . We have the rest of the day to ourselves. What do you want to do?”

Wooley’s idea of spending the rest of their free time together proved to be more tame than Cody had dreaded. Instead of water parks or karaoke nights, they decide to just go down to the marketplace to spend the stacks of credits Obi-Wan had lent them. They didn’t buy much, as Cody already had most of the stuff he needed and Wooley had been too busy browsing the wares to actually choose anything. However, it was still a fun experience, and Wooley’s company was something that soothed him from any other worries that would have come up in that instance.

The younger went from vendor to vendor with their wares displayed in the carts carrying their handicraft, running his hands over ceramic pots and stuffed tooka cats as they walk around. He ogles at the wares with a glinting eye, almost afraid to reach out and grab anything that caught his eyes, invested with everything the market had to offer. They often stopped in their trail when Wooley saw something he liked, running over to inspect glass cases of jewelry and furs. Often, the vendors would try to sell him the wares for double the price, and at that, Cody would pull the former rookie from making horrible financial choices and take him to the next cart.

He sometimes forgets that Wooley isn’t a shiny anymore. He definitely doesn’t act like it with anyone else anymore. Though he’s still outspoken and his smile still holds the beams of sunlight within his shining white teeth, he’s a lot more solemn and thoughtful. He doesn’t follow up conversations at times, preferring to be in silence for a few moments before starting up a new one. And that was fine. But a part of Cody wishes he didn’t have to grow up so fast, that what had happened hadn’t burdened his psyche to the point that he was forced to age because of it. So he keeps Wooley close, laughs at his dry comments, and moves on down the walkway.

Wooley does buy a few things, such as small pastry cubes packed into plastic containers and a small poster depicting some holofilm he claimed he saw while he was in recovery. Cody kept them all in a bag that a nice old Rodian lady had given them when they bought from her small pastry cart, and toted the bag around as they circled around the market pavilion. At one point Wooley stops in his tracks, entranced by one of the carts holding an array of stuffed animals among the wooden shelves. Cody follows him, watching as Wooley takes up a furry plushie of a nerf, its antlers sprouting in a curl from the top of its bushy head and coat as fluffy as a cloud. Wooley runs his fingers through the fluff, invested in the adorable stuffie, earning him a few strange looks from onlookers over a grown soldier fawning over a stuffed toy. Before any of them could say something, Cody glares at them. They shut their mouths and continue on. He pays for the plushie, and they’re on their way.

“Commander?”

Cody turns his head towards the younger, who had the nerf bundled within his arms. “Yes,  _ vod’ika _ ?”

“You were going to say something to me, back at the diner,” Wooley explains. “Right before Dex came over. What was it?”

Cody’s been waiting for him to bring up the topic the entire time, and now that he was, he has to fight down the prideful smile that threatens to show itself when he stops them in the center of the market street, grabbing Wooley’s shoulders to face him. “Wooley. I’ve known you ever since you were taken into the 212th by Boil and Waxer’s suggestion. I’ve known you since the Battle of Ryloth, supporting Ghost Company and confronting danger to free the Twi’leks from imprisonment. We’ve been through it all, battle after battle, and you never once faltered in your steps. On Kotha, on Baltor. And on the Tiika Moon, when against all odds you faced against Grievous and  _ survived _ . Even after all that, you’re still standing on two feet. You have shown valor, determination. That’s something special, something rare that no one could ever afford to lose. Which is why—”

“Oh my stars.”

“Quiet, rookie. Which is why, when you’re all in good shape and ready, I am officially promoting you to an ARC Trooper.”

He wants to save Wooley’s flabbergasted face in the back of his head for both memory and blackmail, reminiscing in the way that his brother’s eyes never lit up with such joy until now. Even after all he suffered, the grin that makes his way onto the younger’s face is so full and uncanny, bringing warmth to Cody’s chest. “You’re— you’re not kidding—” He stands at attention once he foregoes his initial shock, raising his hand into an instinctual salute with the widest grin. “Thank you, sir!”

Cody rolls his eyes at the other’s formality and pulls him close, wrapping a comforting arm around the boy’s shoulders as he leads them to the market exit, where the landing strip for taxi cabs was perched upon. “C’mon, trooper. It’s almost past your curfew.”

“I don’t think ARC Troopers have curfew.”

“I don’t think you know anything about ARC Troopers in general,  _ vod’ika _ .”

“I know they’re cool as hell.”

“That’s a credit in the swear jar, little brother. And an extra set of push-ups for your first day of ARC training.”

Wooley groans in exasperation which only strengthens Cody’s resolve. They hail down another taxi driver, waiting for the speeder to park in front of them to take them back to base.

“Thank you,” Wooley suddenly says while they stand near the strip of road, his tone falling to a whisper, tugging his stuffed nerf close and bumping their shoulder plates together. “For hanging out with me.”

Cody only smiles and pulls him close to his side. “Any time,  _ Wool’ika _ .”

  
  


“Ah, Commander Cody!”

Cody stops waving to Wooley once he sees his baby brother off with a small nuggie on his ruffled curls and a farewell. He turns around to the source of the voice, and finds himself face-to-face with the recognizable physique of Chancellor Palpatine. A few inches shorter than him, with snow white hair sticking from his scalp and wrinkles outlining his pale facade, wearing a scarlet robe that puffed up at the sleeves and cascaded down to the floor, a long light crimson vest adding onto his garb. He regards Commander Cody with a smile, catching the commander off-guard after seeing Wooley off to the barracks.

“Oh,” Cody voices, not easily caught by surprise. “Chancellor Palpatine. What brings you here?”

“Oh, I am just going around,” the Chancellor muses. “I just wanted to make sure the soldiers are alright and everything is in order here at the base. And to finally meet you in person.”

Cody carefully masks his confusion with a pleasant nod. “I’m… honored.”

“You should be,” Palpatine chuckles. His blue eyes are different from the other shades of the color that he had seen from many other people. Ahsoka Tano’s blue eyes were energetic and youthful, Anakin Skywalker’s blue eyes were confident and bright, Obi-Wan’s blue eyes were kind and peaceful. But Palpatine’s eyes… they were different. Grayish, hint of silver amongst the rings of his irises. It makes a shiver go down Cody’s spine. “A clone with a lightsaber? Practically unheard of! When Master Windu had told me of your request, I was greatly baffled. But I gave you permission, and it seems as if I was correct to do so. Your performance in the Battle of Kamino — why, I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“Uh, thank you, Chancellor,” Cody answers. Palpatine, as every other senator, maintained direct eye contact with him, as to not do so would be a way for political opponents to accuse one of lying or treason. But the way that those eyes stare into Cody’s own. They’re almost familiar. “Really. I appreciate it.”

“Well, you deserve it.” Palpatine scans his face with interest, regarding Cody with a hum. “Tell me, what do you plan to do?”

“Plan to do what, sir?”

“Plan to do once you kill Grievous,” the Chancellor responds as if it’s the easiest answer in the world. “Master Windu had told me that your main goal was to take down the general, but it would be rather a shame that is all you plan to do with this power. There has to be more you want than the defeat of Grievous.”

Cody doesn’t have a response to that, the boggling question enough to stir turmoil in his gut. “I assure you, Chancellor, I’m doing this not just for Grievous but for the good of democracy, and the good of the Republic.”

“Good, good,” Palpatine hums. He just stands there for some time, smiling at Cody, and Cody’s not usually winded by anything but he doesn’t think the Chancellor had stopped smiling at him for the entirety of their conversation. “Well, I won’t keep you up any longer. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you, Commander. I will watch your progress  _ very closely _ .”

“I, uh…” Cody stammers. “Thank you, Chancellor. Goodnight.”

He watches the chancellor make his leave down the hallway, vanishing from view once he rounds a corner. Cody releases a breath that he hadn’t realized he’s been holding in the entire conversation. Every word that spewed from Palpatine’s mouth felt like ants, crawling up his spine and throbbing in his head. An ache in his skull, one that pounds whenever danger is close. There was something in the air whenever Palpatine spoke. And those eyes. He’s sure he’s seen those silver-blue eyes somewhere before.

_ “Hm,” Fox hums. “I don’t know, vod . There’s just something about him. Something wrong. I don’t like it.” _

Shaking off the feeling as a need for sleep, Cody returns to his quarters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cody probably passes out arc promotions like oprah with cars. also palpatine has the most RANCID vibes, disGOSTING vibes. fuck him. anyways, citadel arc is up next!
> 
> cody, keeping track of all of obi-wan's embarrassing stories: it's free real estate


	15. rising towers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Cody.”
> 
> “…”
> 
> “Cody, I know you’re ignoring me. I can sense it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, sorry this is late! had a rough patch a few days ago but i think i'm good now. i have an ap test in the afternoon and i haven't even studied the bare minimum but that is okay because i can cancel my scores and kick collegeboard in the ass! anyway, enjoy this hell of a chapter.

“Commander Cody!”

Cody turns around to the familiar voice as he and his brothers are making their ways down to the hangar before their departure, finding Barriss Offee approaching him from down the corridor. Cody stops in his tracks to wait for her and nods for Rex, Echo, and Fives to continue on, then fully turns to face Offee, approaching the Padawan with a raised eyebrow.

“Hey, Commander,” he greets. “What brings you over here?”

“I just wanted to see everyone off before they left,” she tells him with a kindly smile that makes Cody’s chest warm at the sight of. The two of them had not spoken in a long time due to her presence with Master Unduli on their off-world campaign for several weeks, and she had only returned a few days prior that day. He did not realize he had missed her shy and gentle presence until now, the air filled with a tension now falling to a calm hum. “You’re going to the Citadel, correct?”

“Right you are,” Cody nods in affirmation. “Sorry that you and Tano aren’t allowed to follow. But it’s too dangerous. Team’s already as full as it can get.”

The debrief a few hours before had been very simple: they needed to break into the Citadel, a maximum security prison located on Lola Sayu, in order to rescue the Jedi Master known as Even Piell. He held vital information regarding the coordinates of secret hyperspace lanes that stretched through the heart between the Republic and Separatist systems called the Nexus Route, and had been captured during a dangerous mission in the Outer Rim, causing him and the crew members of his ship to be taken captive by Separatist forces. Knowledge of these lanes would allow the Republic to launch secret strikes at the Separatist with ease, making it vital to get Even Piell back before the enemy could derive the information out of him. Or, perhaps, kill him before he has the chance to.

The plan, however… was questionable, to say the least. They would have R2-D2 and a trio of reprogrammed battle droids to pilot their escort shuttle through the orbital defense lines surrounding Lola Sayu, while the “organics” of the crew would be frozen in carbonite in order to fool life detectors, allowing them to sneak into the Citadel with ease. From there, they were pretty much running on luck. When General Skywalker had introduced the plan, almost everyone in the room had given the general the most bewildered looks, but unfortunately none of them had any other plan to get through. Ahsoka Tano had shown eagerness to attend the mission with her master, but had been declined on the prospect that it was too risky for someone her age.

“It’s alright, Commander,” Barriss Offee nods to him with a small smile. As Cody takes a look at her face, she appears worn. Circles were beginning to form beneath her tender irises, and she was much paler than she had been the last time they had talked. “Master Luminara wants me to rest anyway. The campaign took a lot out on us.”

“Are you doing alright?”

“Mostly,” she chuckles despondently. “Just tired, that’s all. We lost a lot of soldiers while we were away. I spent most of my time in the medical camps, trying to tend to their wounds. Most of the men I helped survived. Others…”

She fell away to silence. Cody can understand her grief, the way her eyes flicker with momentary pain before falling away into the recesses of her consciousness. Jedi were meant to control their emotions, General Kenobi had told Cody once after one of their most grueling battles yet, and they could not allow them to get out of hand. It was why most of the Jedi that Cody encounters usually appeared stoic and emotionless, barely breaching their barriers and keeping themselves in check. Cody could understand — as a soldier, it was best that he kept his own emotions at bay in order not to compromise a mission. But he wonders if these Jedi upheld these ideals even before the war, back when they were keepers of the peace. They were meant to be compassionate to others, yet they could not show it in any way that promoted attachment.

Cody places a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Hey, cheer up, kiddo,” he tells her softly. They were both alone in the hallway, most of the troops down by the hangar, so no one else could hear the way that Commander Cody’s normally bolstering voice quiets down to a whisper. “I’m certain you did everything you could. Don’t put blame on yourself just because you couldn’t save everyone. There’s always going to be a casualty, but the best you can do is move forward.”

Barriss takes in the words, lifting a fist to her mouth as she ponders over his comforting words. “Have you faced anything like that, Commander?” she asks in a quiet and solemn voice. “Losing people, even after all you do to protect them?”

Cody’s taken aback by the question, so personal it wrenches his own gut, but he hides it beneath a stone facade. “I’ve lost many brothers during this war. I can barely count the numbers anymore. But… it’s better that I focus on saving those that I can. Not on those I have lost.”

Barriss nods solemnly, taking a glance at Cody’s hand still placed atop her shoulder with a small smile. “I’m sorry for troubling you with these thoughts, Commander. It’s just been bugging me for some time, and I don’t really know anyone else to talk to right now besides Ahsoka or Gree.”

“Don’t apologize. And if you’re ever struggling with anything, don’t be afraid to talk to me.”

Barriss smiles so brightly it’s like the twin suns of Dakra, her golden face glowing as her lips spread all the way to the corners of her cheeks, stress falling from her shoulders. Though her face has been worn, small tics and scratches from stray blaster fire and bullets here and there, she still appeared young. Full of a youth that Cody wants to keep locked in a box forever.

“Thank you, Commander,” she says to him. Cody releases his grip on her shoulder, thinking he saw someone slip past him just then but waving it off as another crew member. “I won’t keep you for any longer. Stay safe. And please watch out for everyone, okay?”

A strange request given that Cody was _already_ going to do that, but he promises to nonetheless. Barriss Offee bows respectfully before taking her leave down the corridor. She takes a glance at him, as if checking something behind his form, but only for a split second. She gives him a tiny wave before adjusting her veil and leaving his sight. Cody watches her go; he ignores how her smile still burns deep in his mind, like a sun that had been reborn from the ashes of another lost. Instead, he turns on his heels and heads to where Rex and his boys are preparing for their mission.

  
  


If there’s anything that Cody hates nearly as much as General Grievous and snow planets below degree zero, it’s being frozen in carbonite.

The experience is weird. He doesn’t really know how to describe the details of being frozen in a slab of rock without getting a massive headache from the memory. When they had been lowered into the chambers of which they would be frozen, Cody descending into the small tube with his helmet at his hip, he could already feel the dread piling up with the machine’s groaning and the taps of the Ugnaught technician’s fingers on the terminal to start the process. Then comes a torrent of sprays, dousing his whole body in the frost that already has him shivering. Cody would have reeled back by the sensation if his body hadn’t immediately froze and grown more solid as time passed. He feels his limbs still, his bones lock and darkness clouding the edges of his vision, slowly losing consciousness before everything goes black.

In between, he thinks he had been dreaming, but of what he did not know. All he registered was that it was dark, cold. It lasts for what only feels a few seconds.

Then, in the darkness comes a hissing sound of something opening. The bruising cold that had overtaken Cody’s body loses its grip, falling away to a heat that becomes hotter and hotter until the oxygen he had not known he had been lacking hits him full force, senses coming back in fruition. When the heat rises and rises until it becomes near unbearable, and the ice thaws around him, Cody's eyes fly open. He stumbles forward with a gasp.

His boots, covered with a melted sleek of the carbonite, clunk against the ground when he falls out the black like a stumbling drunk. His gasp melts into a rough coughing fit, and he covers his mouth with the crook of his arm as his lungs heave out the particles he had accidentally inhaled. He felt like the sentient form of _osik_. 

He finds Artoo to the side, beeping to him in droidspeak. _[ R2-D2 = freed Commander Cody from carbonite // Commander Cody = OK? ]_

“Yeah—” Cody starts before dissolving once more into a coughing mess, practically forcing out his entire esophagus at this point. He nods to the little astromech in gratitude. “I’m fine, buddy. Go free the others.”

_[ R2-D2 = happy Commander Cody is okay // R2-D2 = go free other crew members ]_

In a few more minutes, everyone is out. Luckily, they’ve apparently only been trapped in stasis for a couple of hours, so the effects of long-term hibernation sickness such as blindness don’t affect them — but nevertheless, all of them were suffering in some way or another. The Jedi Generals with them were experiencing sore limbs and aching joints; Echo cradles his head in his hands from a massive headache; Fives literally falls to the ground the minute he takes a step from the carbonite block. The least affected out of the four clone officers was Rex, only suffering from blurred vision, who checks up on Cody when he leans against the side of his former prison with another coughing fit.

“You look like shit, _vod_ ,” Rex comments. Cody glares at him once he’s finished giving all his sickness to the nook of his arm.

“I’ll make sure to rub it off on you,” he refutes back at him. He looks over towards the generals who have gathered in a tight circle, and frowns when he realizes that there were not two but three Jedi amongst their group. A smaller one in fact, montrals and lekku striped with blue and white, donning a crimson red dress outfitted with diamond-shaped bicep braces. “Well, I know that hallucinations can be a side-effect from short-term carbon hibernation but I swear that looks like Commander Tano.”

Captain Rex looks toward the direction Cody’s pointing at, and his eyes go wide. “You’re not hallucinating.”

Judging by the tone of Rex’s voice, and his own words, plus the fact that Generals Skywalker and Kenobi were clearly conversing with the apparition of Ahsoka Tano, that could only mean one thing. Cody feels another headache come on. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Commander? Captain?” Echo and Fives are supporting one another as they approach their commanding officers, stumbling as they prop one another up. Cody and Rex are automatically at their sides to assist them. Rex takes Fives’ side while Cody takes Echo’s, forcing the younger’s arm over his shoulder to bring him back upright.

“We got you,” Cody promises. He brings a hand carefully to Echo’s forehead, which burns just slightly hotter than Cody’s own, but nonetheless he was doing relatively fine for someone just out of carbon hibernation. The one experiencing the worst effects was Fives, and though he was recovering steadily, he remained hunched forward and groaning. “You think you’re good enough to stand on your own?”

Echo nods hesitantly. “I— I think so.”

“Okay, good. C’mon, here—”

He and Rex get the ARCs standing on their feet before assisting the other men assigned with them. Cody goes to help Longshot from the ground after taking a heavy fall once he is awoken, and tugs the younger trooper up by the arm, earning a groan from the latter. “No,” Longshot whines, his mohawk dangling ridiculously over his eyes. “Just let me freeze to death.” Cody had rolled his eyes and moved to aid Charger and Split in the frames behind Longshot’s own.

Soon, all of them were standing upright and dusting off the carbon sickness from their armor. Cody pulls back on his helmet and fixes up his HUD, readjusting the frequency of the satellite antenna jutting next to his visor. Though he doubts he’ll need it much in the upcoming operation. Rex wipes away a few more particles off his chestplate, face now obscured beneath the jaig eyes of his bucket. “All the men ready?”

“Yeah,” Cody answers, and takes a glance over at Ahsoka Tano still speaking with General Skywalker, who previously had been angry with her and had now fallen to a mumbling defeat. They had most likely been discussing Commander Tano’s sudden intrusion on the mission, and by the looks of it Ahsoka had won out the opportunity to come along — of which Cody could not help but feel bafflement for. He had thought that the generals would leave her safe inside the shuttle with R2-D2, but apparently she wasn’t budging at all. Cody really didn’t want her on the mission; not because he thought she would slow them down ( in fact, the troopers were often faced with the challenge of keeping up with the young Padawan ) but in such dangerous circumstances, it was too perilous for any child to come along.

Frustratingly, General Kenobi welcomes her to the mission. Cody’s unsurprised. Though the matter doesn’t sit well with him, he does entertain the opportunity to verbally berate his _ad’ika_ for not following orders.

“Alright, gentlemen!” General Kenobi calls out. “Let’s move out!”

The other troopers shoulder their gear and equipment and begin to follow General Kenobi towards the trail on the side of the cliff face, where a series of pipeworks spread above the gully. Cody stays behind to make sure all his _verde_ go ahead of him before following on his own, sticking by Ahsoka Tano’s side with Rex on her opposite, Fives and Echo taking up their fronts. Anakin Skywalker falls back to instruct Artoo and the reprogrammed droids to stay behind and guard the shuttle when they’re away, and to pick them up when they send him a signal. The astromech beeps happily, and watches the team tread their way down the path.

The road there’s about several hours time, but in all honesty, Cody’s walked farther and much more perilous distances. They make their ways around a curve of the rock, golden lava releasing plumes of smoke that filter through Cody’s bucket, causing his eyes to water from the acidity of the area. The rock formations they walk within are chiseled down, creating a nice shroud above their heads, though once or twice Cody hears a crack in the boulders above as if the entire system is about to collapse on top of the operation crew. Luckily, that never happens. And Fives and Echo’s banter in front of him keeps him from worrying the whole cave system will deteriorate.

“How long have they been arguing about the Bolo-ball draft?” Ahsoka whispers to Cody while the two of them spectate the show before them, with Fives aggressively flapping his wrists up and down whilst explaining something to Echo, who shakes his head in frustration at the other’s attempts to… whatever he was trying to do. Cody had honestly lost track of their conversation the minute he focused on other matters.

“About two hours,” he whispers back, because even though he has no clue what the hell the two are talking about at this point, he’s pretty sure he had to watch them gesture wildly to one another for stars know how long. “I’m surprised neither of them had lost their voice yet.”

“Or how neither of them have alerted security.” Ahsoka glances up at the buildings perched on the top of the cliffdrop with an unamused gaze.

Cody can’t help but smile at the younger’s sarcasm. Ahsoka sure has grown since the two of them had been introduced by Captain Rex’s hand, taking the young Padawan around to get familiar with the troops located on Christophsis. The first time they spoke, Ahsoka had gushed excitedly about him spin-kicking two battle droids in quick succession, and had attempted to make a bet to see which one of them could take down the most in close-combat. Before Cody could grin teasingly and accept the offer, Captain Rex had tugged the youngling away, saving both of them from the quick route to broken bones. Now she’s a lot more tame, though she still holds the same jubilant and snarky attitude, and has matured in both height and behavior.

Though not mature enough to realize just how dangerous it was for her to come along with them on their mission. Which leads him to his next point.

“So, Commander Tano,” Cody starts, and Ahsoka’s face immediately turns sheepish when she realizes she’s not totally out of the clear yet. At least to him. “You mind telling me why you’re here on this mission after receiving direct orders to stay behind on Coruscant?”

“Master Plo gave me permission,” she tells him cooly. “Said you needed all the help you could get.”

“Is that so?”

“Mhm.”

“So you’re telling me you didn’t just sneak into the carbonite chambers to join us on a mission you previously wanted to go on, and that you were granted permission from a Jedi Master who did not address the other generals about the matter?”

“Uh…”

Yeah, she was definitely lying. “Nice try, Commander. How did you even sneak in? No one even saw you enter the hangar bay.”

“Oh!” she perks up, and smiles at him with embarrassed mirthv. “Well, I wasn’t totally alone…”

“What do you—?” Suddenly, Commander Cody is reminded of the conversation he had with Barriss Offee a few hours before, right before he had gone with Rex and the others to the carbonite dousing chamber. Barriss, there to wave him off, just as a figure had passed by him undetected. Barriss Offee. Ahsoka’s best friend. Cody connects the dots. He doesn’t know how to feel — impressed that Barriss was able to distract him well enough to help Ahsoka sneak in, or offended that Barriss only talked to him to distract him well enough to help Ahsoka sneak in. “Oh, that little—”

“Hey, she actually wanted to talk to you!” Ahsoka excuses, attempting to ease at the minor betrayal. “She hasn’t seen you in weeks, and she told me she missed your company since she left the campaign. I was doing her a favor… and myself one too.”

Cody sighs. He can see that Ahsoka was telling the truth this time, not just using Barriss to get what she wanted and even helping her get her own opportunity, but the worry continues to gnaw at him. He couldn’t believe that she actually helped Ahsoka get in on a mission that no one has ever succeeded on. He knows Barriss cares about everyone dearly, and her and Ahsoka were practically attached to the hip, so why put her in even more danger? It already puzzles him that Obi-Wan and Skywalker were pretty alright with this development. Hell, the boys of the 501st were pretty ecstatic about this.

But he knows Ahsoka is more than capable. And kids are always eager for adventure, action, and a chance to help. Cody knows first-hand.

_“Wait,” Iuya croaks. It is as if her vocal chords have been ripped violently from her throat, wrenching Cody’s heart. “Let me come with you.”_

“If you say so,” he says to the Padawan, taking up _Iuya_ ’s wrist and placing it on his forearm on instinct. “But stay by the group at all times, alright? It’s dangerous here. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

They walk a few paces, eerily quiet for a few moments. “Uh, Commander?” the Padawan calls out. Not uncomfortable but pretty confused.

Cody frowns, turning to _Iuya_ to see what was wrong when he realizes the situation. _It’s not Iuya._

“Oh.” Cody quickly wrenches his arm away and faces forward with his cheeks aflame; shame, embarrassment, and something else burns in his stomach. He focuses on the path before them leading to the Citadel out in the distance, a few more klicks away, to divert himself from the situation. “Sorry, Commander. I didn’t—”

“Hey, it’s no problem!” Ahsoka tells him honestly, trying for a smile that immediately has Cody relaxing just a little. “I get it. I’ll be careful, don’t worry, Commander.”

She winks at him playfully, which has Cody rolling his eyes, because if there’s anything he’s absolutely sure of, it’s that the young Togruta could rival Anakin Skywalker when it came to recklessness. Given, she had learned pretty quickly to strategize and plan well ( courtesy of Cody and Rex ), but that didn’t mean she was exempt from a brash decision every once in a while. Nevertheless, he never gets the chance to bite back at her when Echo and Fives turn around to ask the two commanders for their opinions on their argument concerning the ethics of feeding seafood to a Nautolan, of which Ahsoka Tano cackles while Cody stares them dead in the eyes.

They reach the edge of the path that leads further down towards the sheer cliff, hosting a large sleek gray tower hosting hundreds of glowing viewports, illuminated by search lights that move up and down its surface. It juts into the plum violet sky like an orifice from the planet, a complement from the glowing lava basin below. The Citadel. General Skywalker kneels down to pick through his pack, and pulls out a pair of scopes to scan the area. His head looks toward a part of the cliff to the right of the tower, where Cody could vaguely see some sort of entranceway at the topmost part of it. “I see the entry point,” Skywalker tells them. Cody positions his foot on a nearby rock spire, crossing his arms and scowling. He could hear the wind against the hull of his bucket, loud and chaotic.

“You were right,” the commander announces. “The wind conditions are far too strong for jetpacks.”

“Yes, we’ll have to do it the old fashion way,” General Kenobi responds. “With ascension cables and a steel grip.”

“I don’t think so,” Skywalker interjects. He hands Obi-Wan his specs and directs his gaze over to where he had been looking, and Cody sees his general curse under his breath. “Electromines. There’s nowhere to put a grappling hook at that height. We hit one of those, the mission is over. They’ll know we’re here.”

“I suppose that means we free climb it,” Rex confirms.

Sometimes Cody thinks he should have left Rex back in the facilities of Kamino, because in the next minute he’s hauling himself up between two electromines far too close for his liking, several feet above the ground and high enough to kill him upon impact. He plants his foot on a nearby crevice and pulls himself up, gritting his teeth as his muscles strain for the next piece of ledge. He’s climbed steeper surfaces, and he’s had his fair share of experiences with climbing walls back during ARC training, but that didn’t help him with the gusts of wind that attacked the group as they scaled the sheer cliff face. He keeps at his pace and makes sure the other troops are accounted for. Ahsoka Tano is just right above him next to Rex, and she was doing pretty alright, so Cody didn’t worry about her too much.

Finally, they reach the entranceway platform. General Kenobi grabs onto the edge of it as the others catch up to his position to haul himself over just when a droideka and two super battle droids exit to patrol the outside. Kenobi lets his body drop down again, hanging to the ledge in one hand and shushing the others with the other. Cody tugs Longshot closer to him to prevent him from being in the droids’ line of sight, the sheen of metal above them blocking the sight of the clankers. After a few desperate minutes, the three droids retreat back inside, and the sound of a ray shield activating sounds. The plan, unfortunately, did not account for that.

Fortunately for them, Ahsoka Tano really was a great addition to their group. As the smallest of the operation squad, she’s able to sneak into a ventilation duct at the top of the door. Only a few seconds after she disappears into the shaft and Cody’s up on the platform, the ray shields sizzle ceases to a stop. “See?” she coyly tells them. “I can handle myself after all.”

The rest of the clones climb up towards the platform, Obi-Wan and Fives assisting them to up and over until most of them were standing on the small section of metal, scouting down the hallway to see if there were any clankers present to see them. The last trooper of the group to scale up the wall, one of Rex’s boys, is about to reach for Fives’ outstretched hand when the portion of rock he steps on collapses beneath him, causing the trooper to lose his footing. “Charger!” Fives shouts out, but he can’t grab the other’s in time before the man slips from the rock with a cry.

Cody moves on instinct, leaping over the edge of the platform and unclipping his lightsaber from his belt. The violent gusts of wind push at Cody’s body, slowing his and Charger’s fall just enough for him to drive his lightsaber into the sheer of the cliff wall. When he’s right at Charger’s level, he reaches out and grabs his ankle before he can topple into the violent streams of electricity below. Charger’s blood-curdling scream halts to a surprised gasp. Cody plants a foot into a crevice in the wall and shuts off his saber to be able to grab onto a jut of rock with his sword hand, one of his feet dangling in the air before he props it onto another ledge in the cliffside. His body groans with strain, Charger’s weight pulling him down and causing his grip on the rock to slip a bit, but he keeps them attached to the wall as much as possible.

Above them, he can see the silhouette of young Ahsoka Tano, leaning over the ledge of the platform and outstretching her hand. An invisible pulley curls around Cody and pulls him and Charger up the cliff face. “W— wha—?” Charger gasps out as they’re levitated to the platform above. His bucket that had somehow stayed intact with him the duration of his fall slips off his neck, falling to the electromines below and destructing with the voltages of electricity. Immediately, sirens go off above them. Shit.

Ahsoka continues to pull them until the two of them are over the platform, gently dropping them back onto the durasteel floor. The others are automatically on them, checking any of them for injuries, Rex fussing over Cody’s actions in particular. Despite the ache in Cody’s arm ( and the possible strain of a muscle ) he’s more focused on Charger, whose eyes are wide with shock. Fives kneels next to his friend, shushing him as the younger trooper hyperventilates.

“I— I’m sorry—” he gasps out, blinking tears from his eyes, face still contorted into the panic he had when he had taken the fall. “I don’t know what happened, I just lost my footing—”

“Shh,” Cody hushes him, rubbing his back in comfort as he returns his lightsaber to his belt. “You’re alright, trooper. You’re safe.”

Meanwhile, General Kenobi stands above them, glancing around as the sirens that blare from the intercoms deafen their ears. “Well,” he mumbles, “they know we’re here.”

A wave of anger washes over Cody, gently helping Charger to lay his head on Fives’ shoulder before standing upright to glare at his general. “ _Excuse me?_ ” General Kenobi’s eyes snap to him, guilt flashing over his facade, and he is about to apologize when Skywalker turns back around to them with a steel gaze.

“No time for talk,” he announces with a firm voice, and internally Cody thanks him for saving him the burden of having to bludgeon Kenobi upside the head. “We need to get moving.”

The first obstacle had been sneaking through the corridors without being spotted, the group making their ways down each hallway towards where Piell’s cell was located. They had Fives and Echo take out the surveillance cameras overhead, which led to the reveal of lasers embedded into the walls, immediately firing upon them. Cody takes his side by General Skywalker, using his saber to block the blasts from the walls while the men behind him aim their weapons at the laser guns, taking out around half while Skywalker and Tano take out the other. When the lasers were all taken care of, they crept out from their close positions against the wall back into the open, checking for further reinforcements. Luckily, there were none.

The second obstacle came only a second after, when the sound of electric voltage sounds from behind the group. “The walls are electrified!” Longshot shouts out, and Cody turns around to see what he means. Down the corridor was a thin veil of electricity, purple and sporadic. The minute Cody sets his eyes on it, it begins to move at rapid speed towards their direction. “Go!” Longshot screams, and the group breaks into a sprint towards the end of the corridor leeching into a crossroads. “Go, go, go!”

Half the group takes the hallway to the left while Cody, General Kenobi, and the remainders head towards the right. Cody looks back towards where Longshot had been running along behind him, and finds that the electrified wall had accelerated greatly, and was practically at Longshot’s heels. Before it manages to grab a hold on him, Cody lunges forward and grabs him, throwing them off to the side and allowing the wall of energy to pass through the space between their group. He and Longshot fall to the floor with a loud _clunk!_ Cody’s arm is around Longshot’s back. The only injury Longshot had suffered from the voltage had been a few singes on the backs of his ankles.

“Thanks, Commander,” Longshot sighs in relief, heaving as Cody helps him to his feet. Cody nods to him.

General Kenobi, meanwhile, is looking up and down the corridor, paranoid as he looks up and down the hallway. “We have to keep moving,” he mutters to himself, like he didn’t just see Longshot nearly die right in front of him. 

Cody nods with a bitter taste in his mouth, keeping his arm around Longshot’s waist and sending the general a dirty look. “Thanks for the help,” he says dryly. Before the general could voice a retort, Cody takes to the front of the group with his brother, leading them down the hallway towards the cell coordinates.

The third obstacle is… pretty embarrassing to say the least.

Cody spot-checks one of the final hallways towards where Piell’s cell was. Finding it to be empty, he signals to the other men clear, and the rest of the group follows him down the long hallway with blasters at the ready. Something feels wrong about this hallway in particular, far too quiet for his taste. The others are just as perturbed as he is — their steps are deliberate and careful as they make their way down the hall.

Then, something sounds from the end of the hallway, and a trio of commando droids somersault into their line of sight. Cody immediately unsheathes his lightsaber next to General Kenobi — from behind, Cody can hear Skywalker and Tano unleash their own upon the sound of more droids arriving at their location. The troopers aim their blasters at the droids, which dodge each one as they shoot their own, and though each is deflected they are too nimble to be hit by their own shots, leaping onto the walls and even flipping onto the ceiling to ambush them. One of them lunges at Split, tackling him to the ground, but the trooper is lucky enough to shoot it before it manages to strangle him to death. Another droid attacks Bloom, pinning him to the wall, but Cody is quick — he pulls the droid away from his brother and body slams it into the durasteel, raising his lightsaber in a reverse grip to plunge it into the clanker’s chest.

All of them manage to dispatch of the droids, though they have no opportunity to relish in their small victory. “We have to keep moving!” General Kenobi announces for probably the hundredth time ( getting on Cody’s nerves since the start of the goddamn mission ), but when they resume their walk, a loud sound pierces Cody’s ears through his bucket, and he doubles over in pain. All of them do. The siren sounds from all around like a discordant whistle, screaming in their attempts to block it out

When he had been too busy with blocking out the sudden noise blaring in his eardrums, Cody’s hold on Iuya’s saber had loosened up considerably — it slips right from his fingers and latches onto the ceiling before he could manage a grab at it. It would’ve been no use anyway as he is slamming his hands against the sides of his bucket to stop the throbbing headache in his skull. The others lose their weapons as well — Rex’s dual blasters latch onto the ceiling, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan’s lightsabers join his own, and Anakin Skywalker is pulled by his hand to the top of the magnetic trap. At any other instance, Cody would laugh, but the headache that exists after the noise halts and the second wave of commando droids appear down the two sides of hallway again fills him with nothing but dread.

The Jedi had attempted to use the Force to shove them all back, but the clankers’ feet were magnetized to the floor, causing only their torsos to be shoved back. To make matters worse, the magnetic ceiling was electrified, causing Skywalker to be shocked by the voltage of electricity. Ahsoka, Rex and his set of troopers take on the two commandos on their end while Obi-Wan and Cody’s side take the other pair. One of them punches Longshot straight in the face, another violently slaps Kenobi across the skull. Cody’s able to dispatch one of them using a violent hook kick, but the second one grabs him by the throat and throttles him into the air, slowly choking him.

He’s about to deliver an angry kick at the _beskar’ad_ when above, Skywalker slashes at the source of the ceiling’s magnetic field, causing the lightsabers to fall back down to the ground. Kenobi grabs his and Cody’s, tossing Cody his own, and Cody activates it to lacerate the clanker upwards in a diagonal, causing a cave-in within its chest. The commando’s steel grip over his throat releases, and once again his lungs are at rest. While he’s recovering, General Kenobi spins around and plunges his lightsaber into the droid, shutting it down for good. The Jedi then kneels next to Cody, placing a hand over his pauldron.

“Cody! Are you—?”

“I’m fine.” Cody shrugs off General Kenobi’s hand, and attempts to ignore the other’s guilty expression as he rises back to his feet. He looks back to the group. Everything seems to be in order. His men are safe, the droids have been shot down by Fives and Echo, Tano has her lightsabers back and General Skywalker is no longer stuck to the roof ( as much as the image was ingrained in his brain forever ). “C’mon, we’re almost down to the holding cells.”

Rex stays behind for a few moments, looking up towards a set of security cameras just above the diverging paths of hallway. He fires a shot at it, destroying it immediately. Cody hears something akin to a scream of utmost frustration over the intercom.

Finally, they make it to Even Piell’s cell. The ARC Troopers Fives and Echo go in first with blasters at the ready, taking down the guard droids located to the sides of the cell. Captain Rex follows suit with his dual pistols and headshots the torture droid, which falls to the ground before it manages to lay a claw on the Jedi Master suspended in the air. He is tethered by strings of blue light, worn due to the past torture that he may have suffered in this cell, but nonetheless remaining intact. He was a gruff little Lannik, height barely reaching over Cody’s waist.

“What took you all so long?” he mutters gruffly to Anakin and Obi-Wan, who trade amused glances with one another. Skywalker slashes through the orb tethering him in place while Kenobi brings him down to level, gently laying him down on the floor with all the care in the world. Cody shouldn’t be filled with bitterness at this.

“At least your sense of humor is still intact,” General Skywalker jokes.

“I have only half of the Nexus Route coordinates,” Even Piell states bluntly. “I erased the computers while we were boarded and memorized half of the information. My captain’s got the other half. He’s just a few cells down with the other survivors.”

“Do you know where they are?” Cody questions him before Skywalker and Kenobi could once again initiate useless small talk.

“Even better,” Piell replies. “I can take you to them.”

“Good. Lead the way, General.”

They head down the cell block, which was somehow still completely deserted, Fives and Echo tailing along with him. “You… doing alright, Commander?” Fives questions him hesitantly, sensing Cody’s shift in mood since their arrival.

“Yeah,” Cody mumbles routinely. They stop in front of the largest cells at the end of the cell block, left unguarded, durasteel glaring back at them. “This the one?”

“Affirmative,” Echo responds.

“I got this one, boys,” Ahsoka Tano tells them, pushing to the front of the group and sending them a coy smile that eases Cody’s mood a little bit, the older rolling his eyes fondly. Echo taps on the panel on the side of the wall to open up the area. Ahsoka grabs onto the edge of the door and kicks her way inside, knocking out one of the commandos and plunging her yellow-tinted saber into its chest. Cody takes out the other with a single upwards arc.

Inside the cell, larger than Piell’s own as it accounted for a larger number of convicts, the floors were illuminated by squares of crimson, dousing the room in red. At the back wall were the prisoners they had been looking for — the captain in question being a pale-skinned man, with limbs scrawnier than toothpicks and hair the color of dry ice. “General,” the captain greets.

“Captain Tarkin,” Even Piell greets with a gruff affirmation.

Cody doesn’t care about the captain though, opting to turn his attention to the other clones of the surviving crew holed up by Captain Tarkin in the cell. One an officer, wearing the standard grays, and the rest clone troopers, currently devoid of armor. Cody feels his heart pull at the sight of them — it’s difficult to look at his siblings when they have nothing but their blacks, reminding him that beneath all the plastoid-alloy their shoulders were remarkably narrow, their stomachs were practically non-existent, and they looked so fragile with no protection. The one Republic officer at least had some semblance of clothing, but even that didn’t help the sullenness in his expression until the group had walked into the room.

While the Jedi attend to Tarkin, Cody approaches his _vode_ , placing a tender hand on the pilot in grays’ shoulder. “Are you all alright?” he asks him.

The clone under his steady hand nods shakily. Xe must have been under some intense interrogation a while before, xyr body shaking like the electricity of the electromines outside the entranceway. “W— we’re fine, sir. I… I’m Sleeper.” Xe gestures over to the other troops along xem, notably two twins currently being attended to by Echo and Fives. The sister of the two had her hair completely shaven off, the brother had but a dark-colored buzzcut. “Those are Blossom and Grit. We’re some of the last ones left.”

“Were any of you hurt?” Captain Rex asks, taking Cody’s side. Sleeper shrugs, curling in on xyrself.

“N— not really,” he stammers. “J— just standard torture, we didn’t tell them anything.”

Rex comes over to rub comforting circles on their _vod_ ’s back, and Cody gently guides xyr head to rest against the crook of Rex’s neck. “Don’t worry, we’re getting you out of here,” Cody says, then fixes a gaze to Rex, voice a quiet whisper. “The group’s getting too big. With these numbers, if we’re captured again, there won’t be any hope for escape.”

Rex nods. “We’ll have to split up. Half of us go with General Piell. The other half goes with Captain Tarkin. That way, if one of us gets captured, the enemy will only have a partial amount of the information.”

Cody agrees. Rex’s ideas were always on point. But that didn’t mean his stomach doesn’t twist gruelingly at the thought of them splitting up. He’s nearly lost many of his troopers today, and if he had lost the others without his knowing, he doesn’t think he’d settle with it. They had a job to do, however — get those Nexus coordinates back to the Republic before the Separatists could force it out of them. It would be smarter to split up with such dire circumstances, and it’ll be easier to manage the men by his side. Cody grips at tight at the saber in his hand. He can’t let any of them die. Not on his watch.

Despite Tarkin’s avid protests against the plan, and his voice was so irritating to listen to that Cody had to angle his head away just to not hear the obscure arrogance in his tone, the generals took a liking to the plan. General Skywalker and Commander Tano will take Tarkin into the nearby cavern system while General Kenobi, Master Piell take the other half of the group. Cody’s group consisted of Longshot, Bloom, Charger, Split, Sleeper, and the other un-armored troopers. With a final nod to Rex, Fives, and Echo, Cody and his team set off the opposing end of the corridor.

When they had planned to meet up with the others from different routes to the rear landing platform, Cody had pretty much already anticipated the mission would involve climbing a whole-klicks-wide ventilation shaft to make it to the nearby shuttle.

They crawled above the corridors of the Citadel beneath them as quietly as they could, nearing an orifice in the floor of the vent. The sheer drop spanned several meters upwards and downwards, though there were more pipes and grates on the walls of the narrow climbing space than on the cliffside they had climbed their way up a few before. General Kenobi takes the lead in climbing up towards the endless loops of ventilation corridors, with Piell taking the back of the group to make sure none of them would fall.

Cody focuses on climbing and aiding his men in their escalation of the vertical shaft, especially Sleeper, being the only one in the group who did not possess the same armor they had nor the extensive training past the ones on Kamino. Though he does manage to keep up with the commander pretty well, being faster than Longshot and Slit of all people ( the two of which being very insulted that they’re been outrunned by a pilot and openly complaining about it, which eases the tension in the air ).

That being said, it is challenging to focus when he has General Kenobi on his ass during the entire climb.

“Cody.”

“…”

“Cody, I know you’re ignoring me. I can sense it.”

“…”

“Look, I really am sorry, alright? I know I’m being a little difficult, but I really do mean it. I’ve just been stressed — no one’s ever escaped the Citadel before. We have never faced a situation like this, and it is crucial that we get these coordinates to the Republic as quickly as possible. I’m sorry, really.”

Cody climbs faster with Sleeper at his side, and bypasses Kenobi as he latches onto a nearby ladder.

“Cody.”

“General, shut up and keep climbing.”

“The commander’s right,” Master Piell gruffly says. “We won’t get anywhere with all this talk. Keep moving.” He quiets after that.

Kenobi sends out a message to the droids of the shuttle they had arrived in, telling them to head to the landing platform for their rendezvous and wait for General Skywalker to arrive as well. Cody continues to climb through the narrow passageway, and is about to haul himself over to the wider space above when he catches sight of a black-colored probe droid, making its way over to their location. Cody immediately ducks back down, pushing Sleeper’s head down to level with his as the probe droid passes by. He makes sure that the sound of its beeping is gone before pulling them both up onto the shaft floor. “Coast is clear,” Cody tells the others down below when Sleeper tugs on his arm.

“Uh, commander?”

Cody looks in the direction that Sleeper is pointing to, only to come face to face with yet another probe droid. Fuck. The second their eyes meet, the droid zips into the air before Cody has a chance of slashing it down. “Someone get that probe!” Cody shouts down, and Piell and Kenobi guide themselves with the Force to leap after the floating clanker, with Piell being the one to dice the droid into half.

“Did you get it?” Kenobi asks up to Piell, when right after, the sound of a steel against steel echoes down the narrow chamber. Then another, then another. The general’s voice that sounds next surges with a panic. “Security doors! Move, or you’ll be cut in half!”

The doors fall closed in descending order, starting from the top; thin and slicing like knives and sharp as a blade. Cody and Sleeper work quickly to get the other troops into the small chamber they were in, starting with Longshot, then Bloom, then Charger. But when they attempt to pull Slit through the small shaft as the closing doors approach, he screams out in pain. The group attempts to help him out, but it proves futile, each tug on his leg only adding to the trooper’s strain. Something was holding him back. “I— I’m stuck!” Split screams out in terror as the doors above shut closed, obscuring the sight of General Kenobi and Master Piell. Cody pulls at him with all his strength, then glances over the opening of the vent, to where he finds Split’s foot lodged in between an orifice within the wall. The hole is tight and narrow, his ankle bleeding out through his plates of armor as it fidgets between the durasteel. “I can’t—!”

“Just hold on!” Cody shouts at him, having Longshot and Charger grab onto his arms to keep pulling while he unsheathes his lightsaber. The space was too small for him to cut, he would be unable to slice through the metal in time to get Slit’s foot dislodged from within the metal plates, and the chances of slicing his foot from his leg in the process was extremely high. Still, Cody couldn’t take that chance. He leans down, about to plunge his saber into the metal when he hears the last security door above him shut, and someone pulls him back before he has a chance to cut through the wall.

Cody has a strong stomach. He’s seen bloodshed and mayhem, and all of that sort. He’s been subject to so many goddamn massacres in his lifetime that the regular crimson doesn’t have much of an effect on him anymore.

But when he witnesses before his very eyes as Split’s middle is sliced in half by the cut of the metal door, he nearly vomits right then and there.

The scream that rings from Split’s throat is nothing like he’s ever heard before, the anguish present in the cracking of his vocal chords. What’s left of him — from the end of his torso all the way to his head — falls over like a disused toy, blood streaming from the breach in his body. Sleeper reels back and promptly vomits down a nearby grate; Bloom gasps and throws himself against the wall in pure shock; Charger grimaces in mortification. Cody, however, is at his worst.

“Longshot, hand me your blaster!”

His _vod_ does as he’s told, staring in horror as the screeching clone now laying against the durasteel, losing blood at a rapid pace. Cody rolls him over until he’s facing upwards, tearing off his bucket to witness the sight of Split, middle-parted hair dyed black and white, deep brown irises bloodshot and filled with agonized tears. Cody’s stomach hurls at the sight, he feels ready to vomit, _he can’t handle this again_ . He snatches Longshot’s gun out of his hand, and maintains a steady voice despite how shaky it is to force out words at this moment. “Shh, shh,” he whispers, the words catching in his throat as he takes in the grueling sight. He refuses to look downward. He doesn’t want to see it. “Don’t cry, _vod_. It’ll be okay. Close your eyes. Just close your eyes and don’t think about it, I’m here.”

Split is unable to contort words from his gasping mouth, face in intense anguish which rifts Cody’s chest even more, but he flutters his eyes shut, tears cascading down his temples as he waits for Cody to put him out of his misery. Cody has all the others face away from the sight before placing the muzzle of the blaster against his brother’s head. Cody’s breathing is shuddering and quick as he fights down the sobs that threaten to come up. He shuts his eyes so tight that spots dance behind his eyelids. He pulls the trigger.

A hiss. Then silence. Nothing left permeating the space but the sizzle of a blaster wound and the leaking of blood down the gray durasteel.

Cody opens his eyes back to the corpse, the blaster shot he had pulled right in the center of Split’s head, eyes shut and mouth wide open. The sight of it makes his skin itch to the point where he wants to rip his _beskar’gam_ off, wants to tear his eyes out from his sockets as he looks down at his brother, now dead. He lets Longshot’s blaster clatter to the floor, feeling all the energy in his body sap away as he takes in the sight of the unmoving body.

He… he saw the grate. He could have helped him. He could have saved him.

“Commander,” Longshot calls to him, shaking his shoulders. Cody doesn’t realize how long he’s been staring at the body, doesn’t realize how long his own troops still alive were calling out to him. “Commander, it’s okay. I don’t think anyone could’ve done anything to prevent this from happening.”

He could save Charger from a fall to his death. He could save Longshot from an electrified wall. But he couldn’t save Split from a fucking _door_.

“Commander,” Sleeper whispers to him, wiping away at xyr mouth. “C’mon, Commander. We made it this far.”

Cody takes in a hitched breath. He can’t stop staring at the corpse. “Right,” he mumbles in a trance. “Right. All of you are okay?”

The rest of them are in one piece, luckily, having dodged the closing of the sliding door just in time before their fate would be the same as Split’s. Cody activates his lightsaber again, his grip tightening on the hilt as the golden beam practically _mocks_ him, the blaze of calm now turning into a brutal reminder of the body nearby. He drives his blade into the steel door above him, cutting open a perfect circle and allowing the piece of metal to fall to the blood-laden floor below. All of them hoist up Split’s body, placing it on the nearby wall as a final resting place, helmet tucked between his arms. Cody doesn’t want to leave him here, wants for him to receive a proper cremation like so many more honorable brothers. But they could not go on with the extra weight. They would have to leave him here. Cold and alone. The thought twists Cody’s stomach.

He cuts their way up through the grates above. They climb all the way through the shaft and enter where Kenobi and Piell are waiting for them. Obi-Wan fixes a torn gaze at Cody. “Cody, I am so—”

“Save it,” Cody snaps, voice nearly wavering as he does so. “Let’s keep moving.”

He should not have said those words, he muses later on, because the minute he pokes his head out from the ventilation shaft and sees the empty shuttle down at the landing platform below, an infantry of battle droids is surrounding them, blasters at the ready.

  
  


“I won’t ask again.”

Osi Sobeck stands before them, the captured escapees handcuffed with their hands held above their heads in a vulnerable manner, held against the wall of the central command room as the Phindian paces before them to eye them sinisterly. He reeks of slimy swamp water and rotten trash, filling Cody’s nostrils with a less than pleasant _dawoor_ whenever their kidnapper only glances upon him. The cuffs they all don are Force-resistant — it was the Citadel after all — which prevented Kenobi and Piell from using the Force to fend off their capturers. Finally, Sobeck halts his pace in front of Master Piell, leaning down to see eye-to-eye with the Jedi General.

“Give me the Nexus Route coordinates,” he orders him, his voice a hissing drawl filled with arrogance and contempt. “And perhaps I spare you the punishment of ripping your eye _and_ ears off when we return you and your friends to your cell.”

“I’ll never tell you,” Piell spits, gaze furious and determined, refusing to back down from the challenge. He and Sobeck have a staring contest with one another, neither turning their gazes away. Then Sobeck scoffs in annoyance, leaning back up to regard the rest of them.

“I have to say, I’m a little disappointed,” he mumbles as he scans over Kenobi’s form, his mouth curling into distaste at the sight of him. “I had thought with such remarkable Jedi as a part of your team that you would do better than this. I guess I’ve been mistaken. But this is the Citadel — and no one has ever made it out of here alive.”

“Don’t be so arrogant,” Kenobi huffs, sending Sobeck a judgemental gaze. “It might be your downfall.”

“As if I care for the opinion of a man with his hands and feet bound together,” Sobeck snarls. Then, he stops in front of Cody, as if seeing him for the first time, slitted eyes narrowing as he regards the commander’s sunset painted on his chest and the shade jutting above his visor. He comes a little closer, so close that his maw nearly touches Cody’s own helmet. The commander, in turn, refrains from the urge to vomit at the stench filtering through his sunbonnet.

“Defenseless without your weapon, aren’t you, clone?” Sobeck drawls out with a slithering hiss. He reaches down to his belt to bring up Iuya’s lightsaber to level with his gaze, the gleaming golden coat trapped within disgusting scaled claws. “I’ve heard the stories about you. You managed to hold back Grievous and an entire droid army on the planet of Kamino. Shame that you could not save one of your own though — my droids found a body up in the vents you were found in. You must have tried, haven’t you?”

Cody doesn’t answer his question. His hands raised above his head curl into fists, veins popping from beneath blacks, eyes turning steely. Sobeck merely inspects him, observing the tension that appears on his shoulders and his harsh-edged breathing.

“Not talking, I see? That’s alright. I know of a way to get you speaking.”

He turns to one of the commando droids positioned at his side. “Shoot him.”

Cody had thought Sobeck had meant him, being the one that was the subject of conversation, but the droid does not come to stand before him — instead, it goes to approach another clone of the group. Longshot. Chin up in proud defiance. The droid holds up its blaster, right up to the trooper’s head. Suddenly Cody can’t breathe.

Longshot falters.

“Comma—” He’s silenced by the blaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [aggresively plays shots by lmfao]


	16. scalding lakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No,” Fives says.
> 
> “He’s lying,” Echo says.
> 
> “Shut up,” Fives says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comes out of a week-or-more long hiatus to bring you a low-quality chapter because i cannot write and i cannot articulate my thoughts in the way i want rip. anyways, this is a shitty one but that's because no head, no thoughts so! i just wanted to get this one out because i honestly like the next ones a lot better. yeah
> 
> if you notice any grammatical errors i am sorry, let me know because aaaaaa

“ _ Longshot! _ ”

The shout that wrenches from Cody’s mouth sounds nothing like him. It forces its way painfully from his throat, cutting off the respiration in his lungs, causing his limbs to lock in place and his eyes to bulge out from his head. His mouth is held open in a silent gasp, no words coming from it the minute that Longshot’s body cripples upon the crimson shot defiling his head. His helmet clunks against the wall behind them uselessly. There is a hole, straight through his skull, with the singe of sulfur smoking from the gaping maw of the blaster wound.

He hears Sleeper whimper next to him, hears Kenobi’s hitch of breath as if in pain. But nothing else matters to him. Nothing else matters except the memory replaying in his head, just moments before the blast cut through his brain and left him discarded like a rag doll. He can still hear the blaster shot. Ringing in his ears.

“So, he can speak!” Osi Sobeck cackles, putrid slitted eyes regarding Cody with excitement upon the freezing of his body, stuck in place with the shock that takes over. “Who knew that was all it would take to get you to open that mouth of yours, huh?”

“You…” Suddenly Cody is thrashing around in his shackles, nearly propelling himself forward to strangle Osi Sobeck with his bare hands but held back by another commando, aiming its own weapon towards Cody’s own head. Still, he fights against the braces around his wrists and ankles. “I’ll  _ kill you _ .”

His voice is nothing but a guttural whisper, but even that isn’t enough to stop Sobeck from cackling maliciously, further deafening the purity of his ears, now filled with roaring blood.

“Now, that’s no way to treat your captor,” he laughs. “I thought you clones were taught respect on Kamino. Don’t you have respect for your superiors?”

Cody clenches his fists together, tight enough to pop the veins in his wrist, leveling a glare at the reptilian man. He doesn’t answer. The Phindian only scoffs in annoyance.

“Not much of a conversator, are you?” he comments. “Have it your way. Droid — again.”

The anger that settles in Cody’s chest is replaced by a panic. “No, no don’t—”

The droid shoots at Charger. He drops dead on the floor too. Bloom is shot right after. Cody doesn’t even feel shock — only numbness in his bones. He can’t even look at the bodies piling on the wall, facing forward and refusing to view the sight painful enough to scar him. He knows that if he did, he’d probably lose his composure and break down right then and there. 

He… he just saved them. He  _ saved them _ .

Sobeck regards the line of troopers, smirking to himself while Cody is left frozen in his stand. The Phindian snatches the blaster from the droid’s clutches once Bloom joins the other two on the floor; and taking a single glance at the commander, he slyly directs the blaster to aim instead at Sleeper’s temple. Sleeper’s eyes go wide, xyr lips pursing together to bite back a whimper. “Now that I have your attention…” Sobeck slithers, and it grinds the gears in the pit of Cody’s stomach. “… will you tell me the coordinates?”

Cody’s trapped. If he does not answer, he will lose Sleeper along with the other men in the vicinity. If he says no, the same fate will come forth, only this time of his own decision rather than incompetence. And if he  _ does _ oblige, he will be putting the whole mission in jeopardy, and they will all be tortured slowly until none were left to tell the coordinates. The lives of his men were in danger either way.

Then, catching them all off guard, Kenobi speaks up.

“Wait! We’ll tell you.”

He gives Cody a glance, mouthing the words  _ trust me _ small enough so that Sobeck would not see. Cody frowns, just as winded by the sudden outburst as everyone else ( and a little angry, like how Master Piell is in the corner of his vision ) but he nods nonetheless.

Sobeck, blinking from his shock, scowls at Kenobi, trying to piece together any lies within his features. He comes up short, and shrugs as he holsters the blaster to his belt. He hands the Jedi’s lightsabers to a nearby B-1. “Take the prisoners down to the detention level for interrogation. Oh, and if they don’t cooperate? Start with the clones first.” He did not specify what they would do to them upon their uncooperativeness, but Cody already has a few guesses, and none of them yielded a good result.

Their captor takes out a small remote and presses one of the buttons, causing the shackles around their ankles to release the tight grip around Cody’s ankles. Unfortunately, the commander is unable to charge at the Phindian in blinded fury due to the infantry of more droids that press their blasters against his head, forcing him to remain in the line and away from Sobeck. Osi Sobeck, of course, laughs at the enraged shaking fit that takes over his body. Cody resists the urge to go against death and make a grab for the lightsaber in the hands of the clanker, plunging his weapon down the man’s throat with no hesitation. He’s grabbed by the shoulder by one of the B-1s, of which he immediately shrugs off but does not fight, and Sobeck continues to stare at him as the group is led outside of the command center.

Cody manages a final glance at Longshot, Charger, and Bloom. He feels numb.

He barely registers anything that happens when they’re lead down the corridor towards the detention level, not even when a familiar astromech pulls up with a squadron of B-1s with recognizable stripes of blue across their skulls, beeping to the droid leading the group that under false orders they would take them to the detention level themselves. The clankers, dumb as they are, oblige and hand over the lightsabers they had been holding, and make their way down to wherever they were needed next. He feels not even a sensation of relief when the droid tosses up his, Piell’s, and Kenobi’s lightsabers into the air, allowing them to cut through the cuffs around their wrists. They aid the others with discarding their wrist cuffs. They are taken on an entirely different route, this one towards the edge of the Citadel.

“Artoo said he’ll take us to the landing strip where the shuttle is,” Obi-Wan whispers to him. “He’ll try to trick the droids into letting us aboard.”

He nods absent-mindedly. Barely a plan to latch onto, but considering the circumstances, it’s at least a plan for them to work with. He keeps his hands behind his back, fingers latched around his lightsaber, and they exit the durasteel corridors into the world outside.

It’s a cavernous space with a rift in the roof of the crater, allowing a view of the starry skies above Lola Sayu. Stars pepper the plum of violet, and fumes create pollution up in the atmosphere, creating a contradiction of murkiness and clarity. Scattered around the landing strip are turrets, forming a perimeter around the area, each manned by a B-1 who stay on guard while the group passes through them. The shuttle, resting to the left of the grounds, was perched atop the landing platform in prime condition. Four droids take station in front of the ramp leading into its interior, blocking their final chance of freedom.

Sleeper presses xyr shoulder against Cody’s own, trepidation visible in xyr facade, but xe remarkably did not make a break for the nearest exit. The group is silent since the incident — the men appear worn in their steps, each more grueling than the last, and even the Jedi are in a dreadful silence from the event. The droids are unperturbed, being the only ones who have not been present when Sobeck condemned Longshot, Charger, and Bloom to death. And Cody still feels the burden. He leaves those thoughts for later, saves them for another time like so many countless instances under the scrutiny of the enemy, but the weight on his aching shoulders remain.

He needs to focus. At least for now.

_ “Hold it,” _ one of the B-1s guarding the shuttle says, and the group stops in their tracks. The clanker comes close to the crew, inspecting the droid leading the charge.  _ “Where are you going with these prisoners?” _

_ “We’re transferring them aboard the shuttle,”  _ the droid leading them explains.  _ “From Citadel to Point Tarin.” _

_ “Point Tarin? There’s no outpost there.” _

Leave it to a clanker to sneak yourself aboard a ship. Piell and Kenobi exchange looks before the latter makes eye contact with Cody, and Cody clutches tightly to his weapon, ready to take them on despite the overwhelming numbers scattered around the landing strip. Luckily, Artoo beeps to the clanker, and allows for them to come up with another excuse. 

_ “We have orders,”  _ it says. _ “We’re coming aboard.” _

The four clankers glance at one another in skepticism before nodding, allowing them passage. It feels as if they would actually get out unscathed until one of the droids stops Cody by a hand on his chest, and he has to resist the urge to cut it off in that instant. Kenobi, Piell, and Spire are stopped as well; it halts the whole group immediately.  _ “Hold on,” _ the droid in front of Kenobi calls, and lifts up a free hand to their earpiece, receiving a transmission from someone within the Citadel. That’s enough of a cue.

General Kenobi glances back at him and stiffly nods, and immediately Cody unleashes his lightsaber to slice the droid next to him in a perfect half. The others rid of their own as well.

The landing strip devolves into a frenzy. Suddenly, all the turrets around the perimeter are trained on the group and firing on sight. The Jedi and Cody deflect the blaster fire while the troopers return their own fire on the enemy, managing to knock down several clankers before they all cram towards the nearest cover. 

They find haven behind one of the large rectangular crates scattered around the area, pressing their backs against the steel as the fire rains like hell around them. Two more men are shot to death under the erratic fire. He tries to save the rest of them with all he could, grabbing Spire’s arm and pulling her behind the safety of the crate before a blaster shot could knock her upside the head. “Thanks, Commander!” she says, but Cody can only nod, preoccupied now with the numbers of droid forces outside of their hiding space. They could not stay here for long — eventually, they will be driven out and taken back to the cells or killed before they even have a chance of escaping.

He pushes past Kenobi in a crouch and peers over to assess the numbers, the door they had entered through previously opening up to reveal an infantry of spider droids, droidekas, and B-1s. They approach their position at an alarming speed, and it will only be a matter of time before they have them more cornered than they already are.

“Where’s Skywalker?” he grits out at Kenobi. “He should be here by now!”

Luckily, just as he comments upon that, General Skywalker’s team breaches through a chasm in the rocky walls surrounding the area, fighting through the ranks to get to their hiding place. Cody’s never been so relieved to see the pair of jaig eyes, accompanied by the paintwork of a Rishi Eel and a handprint across the breast of a chestplate. The second group splits up; Rex, Skywalker, Tarkin and Ahsoka come to their place while the others led by Echo and Fives hide with the rest of Cody’s crew behind a nearby crate. Skywalker apologizes for his tardiness, and Cody for once this mission agrees with Kenobi in terms of mild annoyance.

“We must conduct a full-scale assault and take back that ship,” Tarkin announces, curling his fist together as if squishing the entire Separatist army with those frail appendages of his. Cody can see Ahsoka, besides Rex, who rolls her eyes at the preposterous idea.

“We have far more problems than that,” Kenobi retorts. “Those turrets. If we don’t take them out, they’ll destroy the shuttle and ruin our chances of escape.”

Cody ponders for a few moments. “I’ll buy you some time. The men and I can drop their numbers and provide you enough cover to take out those turrets.”

Skywalker nods. “Good idea.”

“Tano, Kenobi, come with me.”

Tano nods with determination. Before Kenobi could respond, Tarkin offers the general a revolted grimace. “You’re seriously letting a  _ clone _ boss you around?”

Cody turns to face Tarkin, and he could see the captain gulp upon the glare he sends him through his bucket. He is about to publicly berate him ( and possibly chop off his head with a lightsaber ) when General Kenobi gives the captain a sly smirk. “Say, if you have a problem with that, Captain, why don’t you lead us? Or are you too busy hiding behind a crate and waiting for us to do your dirty work?”

Tarkin is about to retort just when Cody hears a sound permeate through the choking volcanic air. He looks up towards the sky to find an infantry of droids riding on STAPs, heading straight for the group in hiding. “No time for talk,” Cody shuts them down. “Let’s make this quick.” Fives and Echo are ordered to stay with the unarmed men and take them to a safer location while Cody runs off with the general and the other troopers to enter the tumultuous battlefield.

General Skywalker works with the others on their part, beginning to dismantle the turrets while simultaneously dealing with the droids high up in the sky. The rest of them deal with the adding reinforcements. Cody and Ahsoka both work by one another as they take down each of the clankers entering the space, their blades flying and sparking up with each breach in a droid’s armor. Ahsoka is agile and lithe, not just blocking blaster fire but flipping and somersaulting over them as well, utilizing her tinier physique to breach past their defenses to allow the others more time to get to the turrets down the lines of the battlefield. Cody took charge of guarding her whenever a droid ever so much as raised their blaster, defending her while she pressed on the attack. They leap over spider droids and dig their sabers deep into the chests of unsuspecting clankers and keep the battle going despite the growing reinforcements of the Separatists.

They could not stay here for long — they needed to get to the ship quickly.

By the time Cody cuts down a flurry of destroyers, he sees one of the commandos leaping over an elevated platform, manning one of the turrets to fire at the repulsorcraft in the sky, with two forms that vaguely look like Generals Skywalker and Piell riding atop it.  _ “There’s still too many turrets!”  _ Echo yells out through their comm channel. _ “They’re going to destroy the ship!” _

“Just stay there!” Captain Rex screams by Cody to his holocomm. “General Skywalker’s got it—!” There’s the sound of a blast, and Cody whips his head to see the sight of Generals Skywalker and Tarkin, their STAP smoking as they crash against another turret, sending both mechanisms aflame. The diversion was over. The commando droid sets its gaze on the shuttle, rotating the muzzle of the turret down towards the starship. 

Across the field, Echo grabs the shield of a downed commando, rushing towards the shuttle. “Echo!” Fives screams out, voice blaring through the whole battlefield.

Cody, in a haste, rushes towards the droid manning the turret before he could fire, who takes notice of him immediately, and rears the cannon to shoot at him. The commander ducks into a roll beneath the fire, dodging the dual shots before leaping upright on top of the turret. The commando attempts to swipe at him, but he grabs the impending metal fist with his free hand, using the other to slice down the droid into several pieces. 

The crisis seems to be averted until one of the droid’s fingers shifts against the trigger of the turret. The mechanism fires. Right where Echo is standing.

“Echo, look out!” Cody shouts.

Then Fives, who had been rushing towards Echo the second he started running, lunges forward and tackles the trooper — a mere split second before the shuttle explodes in a flash of light, the explosion dousing Cody’s world in a flurry of smoke. The force is enough to send them both careening to the side, slamming against the wall. Seeing the two disoriented, an infantry aims to shoot, but General Kenobi knocks them all aside with a shove of the Force. “We need to leave now!” he shouts to all of them in a bellowing voice. 

Cody leaps from the turret towards Fives and Echo, grabbing them before sprinting towards the others. General Skywalker points to a chasm on the far wall, and the crew disappears through it, the reinforcements not far behind.

  
  


Unfortunately, their troubles don’t find their end there.

After they rest for a mere few minutes within a cave system and General Kenobi contacts Master Plo for a rescue operation, they are immediately ambushed by a squadron of droids that attack from within the crevices in the walls. They are forced to continue down the path down the gulley towards the given coordinates from Plo Koon and Saesee Tinn, which would lead them down to the only area where rescue was a possibility — an island in the center of a lake of golden lava, in the center of a large mountain ring. It was a long walk, and Cody could do long walks but…

His body burns, aches. His feet drag like lead against the ground, though he is careful to conceal it from the others. He’s so exhausted. He wants something to happen — to fight more clankers, to be on the run, to kill Osi Sobeck with his bare hands. Not because he wants to, but because of what such a peace entailed now that the danger was near over.

Now that most of their difficulties have passed, it leaves him much more time to think. Too much in fact. The images scar his vision. Split sliced in half by the metal door and forced to be put down by his own hand. Longshot taking a shot straight through the center of his head. Charger and Bloom following suit. Even the deaths they had suffered during their narrow escape was enough to numb him. There had been so many of them before — now it was practically only the prisoners, the ARCs, and the commanding officers.

He glances over at the men around him. Fives and Echo, nearly losing one another and gripping each other’s hands tightly, scared to let go. The latter of which still held onto the shield he had used before, strapped to his back. Sleeper between Grit and Blossom, each of xyr steps slower than the last and sleep resting against xyr shoulders. Rex remains at Cody’s side. Neither feel like talking after all the close-calls and casualties they had suffered, though he does tap the back of his wrist plate against Cody’s own. It doesn’t totally ease the grief in his chest. But at least he knows his brother is here, and he’s gone through his own set of deaths here in this prison hell.

But it remains. The shock, the pain, the anger and grief.  _ He lost them. _ He tried so hard. He made sure each one of them would survive this ordeal and it was all for  _ nothing _ . Kriff, how was he going to tell Lunger? He’ll be heartbroken. And Wooley? He can’t even hold back the guilt that claws at his chest from the revelation.

He looks toward the Jedi before them, feeling a curl of jealousy in the pit of his stomach. They still had all their numbers from when they started — hell, even a new addition to their group. Cody doesn’t want to be envious ( it’s out of his character, it’s unfair and he knows it ) but he just cannot help it. Seeing them talk with one another, all in one piece despite all that have opposed them. When would his men have this luxury? The Jedi experience their losses, but for every one of their deaths there are thousands of clones that die in proportion to that. When would the galaxy not treat them as a cruel joke and actually let him keep all his men for once? He’s lost Split, Longshot, Charger, Bloom, nearly Echo and Fives. He’s… he’s not saying he wants the Jedi to suffer the same losses he does every day, but…

Cody was being unreasonable. But he just wants his men to be there at the end of the day. He wants them to at least have a chance of coming out on the other side.

He’s so preoccupied with his thoughts that he nearly misses Kenobi falling behind the other Jedi to walk in line with Cody. Rex seems ready to protest, knowing Cody’s mood, but Cody shakes his head and the captain hesitantly obliges. He’s too tired to be angry at Obi-Wan anymore, or at least too tired to act on it fully. He lets Obi-Wan walk by his side just as the path curves down the side of the canyon.

“Cody.”

“Yes, General?” Cody asks.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes. “For what happened back there. For my behavior. I was being inappropriate, I see that clearly now. I understand if you’re angry at me. I was just… stressed.”

Cody glances at the general, and wishes that he still felt the writhing anger and disappointment he had held before. Wishes he had the strength to yell at Obi-Wan again, or swat him upside the head with a lightsaber, or do something that would make him feel some ounce of ground in this situation. But the frustration he feels is diluted, at this point just a form of hurt at the general’s behavior. He’s still angry — of course, he is — but it’s nothing like before when now the thing throwing him off his balance is the burning of guilt within him. He’s mad at Kenobi, absolutely infuriated, but he’s just as mad at himself.

“You made a promise to me, General,” he says finally once he finds his words. His voice is steel against steel, grating like ice. “That you would protect my men no matter the cost. And for a while you kept it — on Kamino, Ruthka, Nil Anem. I get it. I know the Citadel is dangerous, and I know we need to keep moving to stay alive but that doesn’t mean you drop everything just because of the circumstances. That doesn’t mean you can just forget about it all of a sudden. I can’t correct you for these things. I…”

_ I’m disappointed. I’m angry. I feel  _ something _. _

“I know, Cody.” For once, Cody doesn’t want him to. He doesn’t want him to admit that he was wrong or take responsibility, because everything about this was unfair and he  _ doesn’t want it to be. _ He knows he’s unreasonable right now, with wanting Kenobi to give him a reason to stay angry and stay occupied. By his body language and tone he was telling the truth. Cody knows that reasoning isn’t fair. Not fair to Kenobi, not fair to his men.

They fall silent for some time before Kenobi speaks again, voice solemn. “I’m sorry, Cody. I won’t do that again. I promise.”

Cody doesn’t mention his disbelief, or his stance on broken promises. He instead sighs, nodding his head in acknowledgment, though not in total forgiveness. That seems to be good enough for Kenobi, who is ready to head back up to the front with the other  _ Jetiise _ when something stops him. In a bold move, he places a gentle hand against Cody’s shoulder pauldron. Unlike the smoggy world outside, it issues a sort of coolness against his hot armor.

“And we will have Sobeck answer for what he did.”

Obi-Wan was reading his emotions again, but before Cody could berate him on the prospect, General Kenobi returns to the front of the group, and their conversation ends there.

Finally, after traversing the gulley leading to the landing point, they finally find themselves at the cliff base. Down below and several clicks away through muddled terrain, spires and rock formations forming a large cave complex, was the lake — a large basin of golden lava, glowing against the mountain ring surrounding its large demeanor. At the center of the lake was an island, small and barely seen through a squint, with a small strip of land leading up to it from the far side of the shoreline. It was a long way down, but was even more so compared to the terrain leading up to it. The cliff face was too sheer to tread in a straight line, so they would need to travel down a narrow footpath on the cliff face.

It was a considerable detour, but it was also the safest route, and they needed to get to the landing point before reinforcements could arrive. And they could deal with the threat of falling compared to a worse fate within the Citadel. So they start walking.

Cody could hear Fives curse behind him by the time they were approaching the halfway point of the cliff face. “This is not how I expected this mission to go.”

Echo scoffs right behind him. “I thought you wanted some action this mission, Fives.”

“Yeah. Action. This isn’t action, this is suicide.”

Cody manages a glance back at him, away from Sleeper, who he was assisting in xyr less-than-suitable decor in descending down the narrow space between the edge of the path and the cliffside. They were practically scaling the wall by now. “You scared of heights, kid?”

“No,” Fives says.

“He’s lying,” Echo says.

“Shut up,” Fives says.

“You two, quiet,” Rex scolds from the front of the group. A while before, the troopers took the charge of leading the group, and the Jedi and droids resorted to the back of the crew in the case of enemy ambush from behind.

“I’m not the one that needs to shut up,” Fives argues. “It’s the… ahem,  _ captain _ behind us that needs to shut his hole.”

“He’s been arguing the entire mission since we left,” Echo groans. “I didn’t know someone could talk so much in the span of an hour.”

Cody angles his head, and he’s able to hear the endless chatter of Tarkin in the group of rescuers, yapping his mouth with enough complaints to fill a Sarlacc Pit. He was much more focused on keeping Sleeper from slipping off the cliff face to notice, blocking out any noise from behind lest he suffers from a headache from it. “Don’t worry,” he tells the two ARCs. “Once we’re done with this mission, he’ll be the Republic’s problem.”

“I hope,” Echo sighs. “After everything that went down? I’m gonna need a break.”

“You’ll be alright,” Cody promises. He reaches over to fix the shield on Echo’s back so it would not poke him in the nape of his neck. “I’ll make sure of it.”

They reach a large ledge of the canyon path, enough space for all of them to reside upon and take a small break. Unfortunately for them, that did not mean that Tarkin would shut his mouth. He still argues with the generals, who listen with varying degrees of care, until one part of his rant brings Cody from his current focus.

“Captain,” General Kenobi sighs with enough exasperation to be physically felt. “I do not understand your statement.”

“My statement is simple — you Jedi need to take charge in this war and actually  _ kill _ your adversaries if we wish to succeed, moral compass or not. Besides, if you have such a tight moral compass, why is a  _ clone _ holding a lightsaber?” Captain Tarkin questions with an egotistical accent, barely even trying to keep his voice a whisper. “It’s out of the ordinary and, dare I say, a weird choice. You know that they can’t be trusted with a weapon like yours. They’re just not built for that.”

Cody promptly turns around to face Tarkin, along with the rest of his brothers. He’s pretty sure he heard Fives say something along the lines of  _ oh, he did not just— _ but instead of confirming it, Cody he approaches Tarkin, staring down at the shorter man with eyes of steel.

“Care to repeat that, Captain?” Cody asks him.

He sees Tarkin’s face overcome with confusion, and he glances over at Skywalker in a silent plea for help, but the general is too busy glaring at him with crossed arms to offer him any solidarity. Cody would almost feel gratitude towards that if he wasn’t already busy dealing with the  _ shabuir _ right before his eyes. “ _ He said— _ ” one of the reprogrammed clankers begins but Cody quickly cuts it off, angling his gaze so that Tarkin could see his own reflection within the visor.

“No, I want to hear the captain say it. Go on, sir. What was it you just said?”

Captain Tarkin doesn’t speak. Cody sees him gulp nervously, which only boldens his resolve. He’s pretty sure the captain is quaking at the sight of the squadron of clone troopers before him, each fixing their own personal glare on him from his insult. When he makes no move to neither explain or apologize, Cody scoffs.

“If you do not have anything to say to my face,  _ Captain _ ,” Cody says cooly, “then I suggest that you keep it to yourself.”

He promptly turns back around to continue their journey, of which his men follow suit, more at ease now that the man has been silenced. He promptly ignores Fives and Echo’s snickering, though he does feel the corners of his lips lift at the sweet sound. Ahsoka sneaks up to the front of the group, grinning at him. “Thanks, Codes.”

Cody retaliates by giving her a small noogie on the head before they further tread down the path.

  
  


The minute they step off the path, trouble finds their way.

It’s in the form of the clanking of spider droids and commandos making their ways down the path towards their location, the buzzing that rings through their machinery echoing down the chamber of the cave they find themselves within. Accompanied by the infantry coming to them sounds nothing like a droid. It’s growling — the snarling and bark of hounds as their paws pad over the rocky cliff slope. Cody’s too far down to hear them properly, but as they come closer, he can recognize their distinct howls from the education the clone cadets had received on different species of the galaxy. Anoobas. He’s seen a few images of them, not enough to scare him into submission but just enough to make his heart cease its beat as their clawing steps come closer.

The group spreads out the second they’re down on the cave space. They were at the lake now — a basin of glowing golden lava that spews sparks every now and then, the waves forming a disgusting goop that brought tears to his eyes from the heat. The shoreline was less of a beach shore and more like an elevation above the deadly basin, a shroud of rock spires covering around the cliffside that fell away farther and farther out until the cloak was gone entirely, leaving an entire section of shoreline open to air attacks. The land all around was covered in smoke and mist, moisture collecting on Cody’s visor. He had to turn on his suit’s cooling system to dissipate it. Other than the spikes jutting from the ground and the small bit of cover to the sides of the cliff that fell away further out, there would be nothing stopping them from receiving an ambush.

Cody ducks behind one of the small juts of rock and peers out to where the shoreline ended a few klicks away, where he could see the island in the center of the lava lake. It’s a small landmass, and down the opposite end of the gargantuan crater there was a land bridge leading up to it, though in chunks that required one to jump across. With the pace the infantry keeps up behind them, it would be near impossible to reach it without a scuffle occurring. They needed a plan. And a good one.

As a group, they decide to split up. Cody, Rex, and Ahsoka take the rest of the group with Piell and Tarkin towards the cave mass at the other end of the crater while Kenobi and Skywalker stay back to hold back the ambush. Claimed that if any enemies got past their lines, it would be up to the commanding officers and their Padawan to take them down. It was pretty sound considering the circumstances, so when the time comes, they take off into a sprint towards the other end of the crater.

The terrain of the shoreline was less than equipped for running across. The ground was littered with debris and often spikes jutted from the ground, sharp enough to spear a trooper’s heel if they weren’t too careful. They ran between spires of rock and jumped over crevices towards the far end of the gigantic crater, which seemed to be much farther than it truly was. It was while they were running that Cody suddenly hears the sound of machinery far too close to be with the generals.

He turns towards the lake, searching for the noise that grows closer with each clutch of a mechanical heel. That is when a spider droid with gleaming scarlet eyes and a nose acting as a cannon pops its dome-shaped head from the side of the cliff face it had been climbing on, firing on them instantly. Ahsoka lunges to the front of the group and deflects its blasts while commando droids arrive atop the other spider droids climbing up the sheer of the elevation, leaping off and shooting at them furiously.

They dispatch of them, though their numbers increase as more and more arrive from the side of the shoreline, firing on them with crimson cylinders that chafe off a part of Cody’s calf plate before he could dodge. The troops take the offense, firing at the spiders’ glowing red weak points and the commandos somersaulting and flipping towards them, wielding blasters and vibroblades. 

“You good, Commander?” Cody yells to Ahsoka, who gives him a thumbs-up before leaping atop a spider droid, plunging her lightsaber into its skull, backflipping and slashing through another of its kind. Cody would have called her an endearing show-off if not for the haste of the situation.

It seems as if they are finishing off the droids when the sounds of hounds come their way, passing through the two-person guard that was General Kenobi and General Skywalker, bounding towards them with razor-sharp teeth and an insatiable bloodlust. These mutts were large, larger than even the largest akk dog he’s encountered, with stripes over their rugged fur coats and eyes a horrid yellow. Generals Kenobi and Skywalker are coming their way as well, chasing them down as they gain footing towards the other group.

Cody drives the crew further down the shoreline, ignoring Tarkin’s offended complaints when he shoves him less than gently down a downhill slope of the shoreline. He hears the race of STAP repulsorcraft above, another addition to their troubles, just when the anoobas reach them with grinding teeth. Echo takes out a few of them with a precise blaster shot and blocks another one from sinking its teeth into his flesh with the shield he had acquired, knocking it against a nearby rock spire. One of the anoobas bites at Cody’s ankle that he reels back just in time, then the commander delivers a powerful kick that has the anooba flying into the lava lake before, wailing as its skin melts beneath the  _ ve’vut _ . He continues on, keeping the group on their toes.

That’s when the clankers of the repulsorcraft show their faces, firing on the ground around them and aiding in the anoobas biting at their men, distorting their vision of the battlefield. Cody could hear the droids’ whirring and mechanical limbs as they fire on the surrounding area, but there’s a sound that is nothing like the voices of the droids back at the prison. This one is organic — a horrendous cackle from above like a demon in the darkness. He angles his head up to assess the voice, and feels his fists clench at his sides upon the sight of a familiar Phindian with putrescent green skin and a toothy grin. 

“Thought you could escape?” he guffaws at them, aiming his turrets on their location.

“Everyone, duck!” Rex screams out, and they all shield their heads from the runs the STAPs above take upon them, rounding back for another run. Just behind them, the second wave of anoobas approaches, and they attempt to finish them off with all the fire blasting all around them. Anakin Skywalker force leaps onto one of the repulsorcraft, causing it to spiral under the sudden weight and forcing it to ricochet around the crater nearly upside down. Cody has no time to check on Skywalker and see if he survived when a stray blaster shot from the cannons above heads straight toward his head.

Then by an unknown Force, it stops. It surges as it is held up in the air, caught within an invisible force field. Cody looks behind him and finds General Kenobi, concentrating deeply as he keeps the blaster bolt in place, then directs it eastward, where it kills an entire line of commandos that is about to massacre Sleeper and Grit. Kenobi takes Cody’s side, his own blade shining a great sky blue.

“Commander!” General Kenobi calls out. “Are you alright?”

Cody punches a droid square in the face. He glances around the area, searching for the sight of Piell, Tarkin, and Ahsoka, but freezes when he catches no sight of them. “Where’s Tano?”

Kenobi glances around, his eyebrows furrowing. “I do not know. I’m sure they will be fine. I’ll dispatch the droids, then target the airborne ones. You think you can take out the rest?”

“Already on it.”

Kenobi then leaps up onto one of the STAPs just like how General Skywalker did, albeit less reckless than his former Padawan, aiming the muzzle of the repulsorcraft’s gun towards the other clankers, firing on them as they advanced while the troopers took out the remaining anoobas in the area. Then, Kenobi promptly takes control of the craft, sending it flying out into the heavens and crashing back down onto the other side of the crater, where General Skywalker had been dealing with his own set of droids. Kenobi leaps from the craft before it explodes in a fury of light, then goes to assist his friend.

They take out every last enemy in the area, but Cody can’t find Ahsoka or Piell around — even Tarkin was missing from the group. He hears some sort of howling far away, and directs his gaze over to a section of the shoreline that jutted out from the mainland, where he could see a pack of anoobas that lunges toward a small silhouette, overtaking him on the ground. Immediately identifying it as Master Piell, Cody and Rex head over to the small juncture of ground. From there, they quickly take out the other anoobas, and Cody merely kicks one off the ledge that had been biting at Piell’s flesh. The sight beneath them was brutal.

Master Piell’s stomach was scarred horrifically, blood trailing down onto the ground. Fatal. Neither had the necessary supplies to fix it up, especially with a deep internal wound such as this. The Lannik groans with agony, though not screaming in the way Cody had expected he would. Rex gently elevates him in order to ease the blood flow, but before Cody could do anything, he hears a sonorous war cry from behind. He looks up just in time before pushing Rex and Piell out of the way and rolling back to escape the deadly electrified blade that comes down on his previous position. He gets up from his crouch just in time to see the man in question, Osi Sobeck, the person responsible for the deaths of his men, holding Tarkin with one hand and a vibrosword in the other. He grins at Cody. Cody glares at him.

Cody doesn’t say anything, merely setting a gaze of pure intensity onto him. He twirls his blade over his knuckles before lunging at him.

Sobeck, unsurprisingly, is caught off guard, leaping out the way before Cody could split open his entire chest with the light of his blade, releasing his hold on Tarkin in his surprise. Then Cody kicks him in the jaw — a crack sounding from the impact — and slices at his head that are both ducked beneath. The Phindian attempts to attack with his sword, but Cody merely chops the edge off with his own, leaving the man defenseless. He has him open for the finishing blow when Sobeck stutters back when the  _ shabuir _ ’s back collides with Tarkin.

Tarkin, who had been on the edge of the tiny jutting piece of land, promptly loses his footing, nearly falling back into the lava. Cody rushes forward to throw the captain out the way before he could fall when a reptilian foot collides with his chest, sending him flying over the edge of the juncture of land. He grabs onto the ledge just in time. His body hangs helplessly from the ledge, feet dangling over the spitting pit of flame. He still clutches his lightsaber tight as Sobeck comes closer, laughing maniacally that churns the pit of his stomach. With a single stomp, the man could knock him off and send him plunging into the lava.

Then, a green lightsaber spears through Sobeck’s back. There’s a hiss, and a shuddering gasp. The saber disappears, and Sobeck’s body passes his and falls into the lava.

Immediately, there is someone hoisting him up from the ledge. Ahsoka, eyes contorted into worry, laying gentle hands on his shoulders once he was fully back on land as she checks him for injuries. “You okay, Commander?”

Cody’s eyes are focused on the deteriorating corpse of Osi Sobeck. Hideous scales melting away in the spewing pit and leaving behind bitter bones that fall to the bottom of the lake. He was a man who he had declared vengeance upon just as he did Grievous, now smoky remains as he falls deeper into the basin. He feels no joy or relief, no satisfaction upon the lack of blood on his blade. It’s like back on Kamino, letting Grievous escape — only now, he got no second chance at vengeance for his brothers.

There’s a small part of him that’s furious at Ahsoka for taking his ability to end this man’s life after all the things he had Cody witness. But when he looks at the young Togruta, eyes cast in genuine worry, it fades away.

She was doing what she thought was best. It brings both warmth and disappointment.

“Yeah,” he answers hoarsely, masking the dismay in his voice. “I’m good. Tarkin?”

“He’s alright,” Ahsoka answers. “Already heading back to the others.”

That alleviates some of the stress that Cody is going through. Ahsoka helps him into an upright position when both of them are called over by Captain Rex, checking over Even Piell. The stress comes back. They rush over to the dying Lannik and assist Rex with his frail body.

The group comes back together at the cave in front of the land bridge, with Ahsoka taking the burden of carrying Even Piell’s dead body over her shoulder, as she was the one the Jedi Master had given the coordinates to before his departure. The air turns solemn when in the march to the others. Cody takes Obi-Wan’s side on a small elevation of the ground, watching as the young Padawan places down his body at the center of the group. For a few moments, no one speaks.

Usually, after a loss like this, everyone would be cramming in for a small funeral, everyone present to the sending off of the Jedi. No regard for the troops that have died until after the mission was over, while the Jedi gone would have all the time in the world to be laid to rest.

Then, to Cody’s surprise, General Kenobi turns to him and places a gentle hand on his shoulder. Cody can’t find the strength to shrug it off. “You and your men should get some rest. We’ll take care of Piell’s body.”

Cody’s eyes trace over Obi-Wan’s facade, trying to find a catch formed within the aging lines beneath his eyes, but when he finds none, he gives him a simple nod. “Thank you, sir.”

He and his men take residence down by a nearby cave system, resting their backs against the walls and stalagmites that jut from the planet. Their limbs ache to the point of collapse despite how much training they’ve received that prepared them for such haughty missions, and Cody has to tug off his helmet just to be able to breathe in the sulfur-sweet air properly. The troops of his company reside by nearby spikes, speaking to one another in dull and hushed tones.

Cody leans against the wall, Echo and Fives on either side of him. The two had asked for permission to lay their heads against his shoulders, to which he allowed, and he reaches up to pet Echo’s soft dark curls as the two of them rest for the time being. Rex is right by their side, rubbing circles against the back of Fives’ chestplate, taking in as much rest as he could. A few moments later, Ahsoka Tano joins their side, kneeling by Rex outstretched feet with her head down, desolate after the losses they surmounted that day. “You doing alright, kid?” Cody asks her, and she tilts her head up to look at him, montrals twitching cutely.

“Yeah,” she mumbles. She’s becoming a little too much like a Jedi. She doesn’t often voice her emotions or issues anymore. Cody had expected Barriss to be more closed off as she got older while Ahsoka became more open, but it turned out the opposite. “I’m good, Codes.”

Cody snorts at the nickname. He would have scolded her lightly and given her a small nuggie on the montrals, but the weight of the ARCs resting on his shoulders inhibited any movement, and he found no reason to berate her after all she had done for them today. “Thanks,” he whispers to her, glancing down at Echo, struggling to keep his eyes open. “You did some good work out there.”

Ahsoka blinks at the sudden gesture of gratitude, but nonetheless she smiles at him, and he could barely see through the cranny of her lips pearly white fangs, grinning at him. “No problem, Commander.”

He doesn’t mention her killing Sobeck, or the feelings he has about it. He doesn’t want to think about them at all, preferring to let that time come when he’s actually got the time for it. He wants to avenge Longshot, Charger, everyone killed by the Citadel’s hand. And he wants nothing more than to strike General Grievous down with his own saber; but after Sobeck’s death, he wonders if he’ll even get that chance. Grievous has a lot of enemies. He’s only one out of hundreds of them.

Cody shifts Fives’ weight on his other shoulder so that he would be more comfortable. All of them relax beneath the looming cave roof above, listening to one another’s breathing, Ahsoka by his feet and giggling as she converses with Rex, Fives and Echo receiving the rest they deserve after such an encounter out on the battlefield. His gaze trails over to where the generals are speaking with one another. General Kenobi seems to sense his eyes, craning his neck to meet Cody’s gaze. Cody’s too far away to say anything to him, and he doesn’t want to disturb the small group forming around him, but all he can manage is a nod of gratitude. Obi-Wan does the same, the worry lines fading away for but a mere second and a small smile tilting at his lips.

Cody’s not good with broken promises, especially not after everything, but the small exchange could be a first step in the right direction. 

They rest for what felt like only a few minutes before General Kenobi’s comm blinks. He taps on his wrist, bringing it up to his mouth. “This is General Kenobi, what is it?”

“ _ Master Kenobi _ ,” the comm buzzes out, and amongst the status of the connection Cody can easily identify the raspy voice of Plo Koon. “ _ Masters Tiin and Gallia have just bypassed the atmosphere of the planet. We are heading towards the coordinates. Are you there yet? _ ”

That has everyone scrambling to stand upright. Fives and Echo bolt back onto their feet, readying their blasters. Rex follows suit when he’s pulled upright by Ahsoka Tano’s steel grip, Cody just at their heels as they sprint towards the generals and Captain Tarkin outside the cave space. All the men crowd around, ready to move out immediately. “Yes,” General Kenobi answers, relief in his gaze. “We’re right by the land bridge, we’ll meet you at—”

They’re cut off by a barrage of explosions that go off and strike at the rock formations near them, the rooftops of the cave system grumbling in anger. Cody’s eyes immediately drift towards the sky, where several clankers riding STAPs arrive, their cannons opening fire on the group that is now unshielded by the dome of rock they had been sitting under. They crouch down and shield themselves from the torrent of bombs.

The sound of engines overhead arrives then, different from the repulsorcraft, and a large craft overtaken by shadow breaks through the clouds peppering the sky, aimed towards the island landing zone. “All of you! Run for it!” Ahsoka yells out, and the group wastes no time in breaking into a full-on sprint down the land bridge connecting the shoreline to the small island.

They leap over rivets in the ground and tiny rivers that sizzle dangerously, finding their way through the jutting spikes of the thin bridge. Above them, the repulsorcraft continues to fire, both commandos and B-1s manning them, relentless in their tirade against the group. Cody runs faster until he’s side by side Fives and Echo, turning around in order to deflect the incoming barrage back at the crafts as he runs backward. Unfortunately, they were as nimble as Cody was precise, only one being hit by his deflected blast and spinning out of control. The repulsorcraft goes berserk, nearly decapitating them in its craze.

Eventually, they make it to the strip of island. The ship that circles above refrains from landing due to the new arrivals that shoot at them, too busy dodging the fire in order to make a safe landing. Several of the commandos operating the vehicles fall in front of them, allowing their repulsorcraft to crash and give them a boost, somersaulting in the air until they are dropping right in front of the group. Cody unleashes his saber to meet them with gritted teeth, lunging at them as they did. He quickly slices two with only two arcs of his blade and spears another in the chest. The remaining Jedi of the group aid with dispatching the droids on the ground while the ship along with the other troops open fire on the  _ beskar’ade _ occupying the sky, aiming their cannons at the ship and chucking grenades at those below. 

The gunship before them risks to open its doors, and inside appears Plo Koon, hanging onto one of the belt loops on the ceiling with the other outstretching towards the group. The gunship hovers over the edge of the island, away from the rest of the droids to prevent being shot down immediately. “All of you in here!” the Kel Dor yells to them. “Quickly!”

Seizing the opportunity, the group makes their way to the gunship. That’s when the tragedy strikes.

Cody barely sees it coming. He’s too focused on Grit, who had stumbled and nearly fallen when he tripped on a loose edge of rock. Cody had grabbed him in the nick of time before he could lose his footing, and shoved him towards the gunship before he would be shot. He only looks up in time to see the repulsorcraft that had been spinning out of control aimed right towards him. Can only feel his mouth go dry as sandpaper as it closes in. He barely has time to register the lightsaber in his hand to deflect the incoming craft.

Then he feels a hard shove, a cry of his name along with it. He’s pushed right to the ground, tumbling from the force. When he looks up, he sees Echo. Holding up his shield in a defensive stance, right towards the repulsorcraft aimed at him. It collides with his shield.

There’s an explosion. A ring. Echo’s body flies and lands a couple of feet from their location. His helmet is knocked off his head. Clattering against the ground.

Cody hears Fives scream behind him, hears the gasps that echo from the other troopers tucked away in the gunship. His gaze tunnels to Echo’s body, abandoned against the ground of the island, destroyed shield discarded somewhere else, and he does not think before sprinting over to him. He deflects the blasts of incoming craft, downing the rest of the commando droids before grabbing Echo’s body ( burnt flesh filtering through Cody’s helmet, choking him to the brink ) and running towards the gunship. General Plo reaches out and tugs them into the ship with a pull of the Force. The doors shut once they are inside, and the gunship races towards the atmosphere above before more harm could come to them.

Cody collapses on the ground, ripping off his own helmet as his breaths quicken. He can’t look down below the younger’s damaged face that’s contorted into pain, knowing that if he did he would vomit from the sight. Fives and Rex are immediately there while General Skywalker screams out for anyone to stabilize him. Generals Kenobi and Plo lean over his body, trying to keep Echo calm and inspecting the damage that Cody refuses to look at.

“Echo!” Fives screams out. He’s sobbing. “Echo, can you hear me?”

Echo groans, and a singular tear cascades down his cheek. His eyes are frantic, pleading as if the light of the explosion was still vibrant in his eyes.

Then he goes quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cody: what do you have  
> echo: a habit of risking my safety for other people that will no doubt blow up in my face  
> cody: NO-


	17. brimming drinks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Cody?” Rex calls out.
> 
> The last clanker barrels towards him, but he merely kicks it in the knee to destabilize it, before he promptly grabs its head and tears it straight from its neck socket. The rest of the droid’s body stumbles drunkenly and falls to the ground with the rest of its fellas. Cody turns around to face the others, still holding the droid’s head in his hand. “Yeah?”
> 
> All of his brothers glance at one another, silently conversing. Normally, he doesn’t like to barge into other people’s business, and his batchmates knew that, but he’s definite that they had been discussing him beforehand, and it already has him dreading this interaction.
> 
> “We’re… worried about you,” Ponds begins, eyeing the droid skull in Cody’s hand.
> 
> At that, Cody frowns. “Why?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! the bounty hunter arc never happened and ponds never died, thanks for coming to my ted talk.
> 
> anyways, i took this chapter as an opportunity for everyone to get fucking wasted and to bring shower beer fox into fruiton, i hope he suits your taste. next chapter will come a little late since i'm still writing it out but for now have this light-hearted chapter!

Cody can’t stop staring at the bacta tank.

Within the fluorescent blue hues of the bacta swimming within the cylindrical machine, there floats the body of a man. A young man, practically a kid to him. Skin scourged by burns that go up from his torso, his head bobbing around within the gentle waves of the bacta within. Around his mouth that had previously been contorted into anguished whimpering is a breathing mask, supporting him with necessary oxygen. Wires and tubes floated around his body, keeping him stable, keeping him alive. His chest pumps up and down, gratefully exhibiting his recovering health.

But it all comes apart when he looks down.

He regards the nub that was now Echo’s right arm, a phantom of the limb that had been blown off in the explosion, the one that had been holding the shield that had taken the brunt of the impact. He addresses the lack of a right leg Echo possesses that was once scorched to black, his floating body left with only half of his body. The right side of his torso was horribly burnt and deformed, and the injury he had sustained to his ear showed no sign of healing there. It’s like looking at a ghost.

They had to amputate the limb that was no longer of use. He remembers transporting his brother to the medbay. Recalls Fives screaming and crying, pleading to whatever god up there that his brother would be alright. Recalls Anakin’s face clouded with darkness, asking with complete urgency to the medics what they needed to do and how much would it take to save his life. He recalls himself, keeping a steady arm around Rex practically in shambles, all of them running after the floating table carrying the dying boy. He’d never seen Rex that broken.

Everyone was suffering. Skywalker and Ahsoka had visited near  _ constantly _ , talking with one another as they looked up towards the comatose trooper, the Padawan blinking back tears while Skywalker’s fists became clenched at his sides in pure fury. Jesse, Hardcase, and Kix ( the latter the main one taking care of Echo as he had done with Cody ) often came as well, staring up at their brother and fighting back a torrent of sobs on their own. Rex came alone most of the time, though he didn’t mind Cody accompanying him every now and then, leaving the room with a solemn stoicism that did not fall until Cody coaxed him to rest. The 501st, notably Torrent Company, was under severe stress. The ARC Troopers often came to visit, as did a few of Echo’s friends from other battalions, paying their respects.

Fives, however, was probably the worst. Cody doesn’t think he’s seen him sleep a wink in the time that Echo was in the bacta chamber. He didn’t visit — no, he basically set up camp here. He refused to leave Echo’s sight no matter the circumstance, not even to the urging of Kix, and he had to be pried from his brother’s stasis chamber just to eat his share of meals. It had become so bad that General Skywalker had let him take a leave from the company until Echo had woken up. Not that that could make a difference — Cody doubts the poor boy would leave the medical bay for anything at all unless it was for nutrients and the occasional nap, ordered or not.

When Cody enters the center containing all the bacta tanks, the same tanks that Cody had used to visit when  _ Wooley _ had been in there, he finds Fives’ face gazing up towards the chamber holding his twin brother. His face is cast in its neon shimmer, eye bags dark and prominent, face emotionless as he only stared. Cody sighs, a sigh that could be mistaken for exhaustion, which was only half true. He approaches the ARC Trooper, the last of Domino Squad still conscious after the skirmish on the Rishi Moon Base, placing a hand on the back of Fives’ chestplate. “C’mon, kid. You need to sleep.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Fives asks him cryptically. Cody looks at him, then angles his chin up to the boy suspended in the fluids of bacta. He’s not the type to sugarcoat information, but at least he can tend the wound over his  _ vod’ika _ ’s chest with at least some good news.

Cody sighs through his nose again. “I don’t know, Fives. He took a hard fall. The medics say he’s recovering though, and they’re doing everything they can to maintain it.”

For a few moments, there is silence as Fives mulls over the words, eyes never tearing away from above. The whites in them are bloodshot, the familiar warm brown that shines whenever he so much as grins at Captain Rex whenever he has a dastardly plan has fallen to a depressing flicker. He looks… tired. Worn to no return, falling apart right in front of Cody, who can only watch as it happens. He can’t provide the comfort Fives’ deserves. He can’t when he can barely help  _ himself _ .

“We…” Fives begins. His words choke on a sob, and he pushes it down his throat in order to speak again. “We were planning to hang out after the mission. Go to 79’s. Relax for a shore leave. We were going to…”

The younger swallows back down another sob, finally tearing his gaze away from the boy above to shut them as tightly as he can, his head dropping as a fresh wave of tears cascades down his cheeks. He looks so broken. It’s like Cody’s seeing him and Echo again back after the death of Hevy along with the rest of Domino, the two clutching to one another for dear life and crying behind closed doors. The two of them were extremely emotional, and Cody did not judge them for it — but blast, Fives was taking this so much worse than anyone else and it’s so hard to look at. The poor boy had survived so many battles, yet he’s never seen him in such distress.

Cody takes Fives’ shoulders, bringing him to his neck and allowing the younger to sob on the plastoid of his chestplate, body trembling beneath his fingertips. He says nothing ( nothing could help in a situation like this ), only rubbing soothing circles on Fives’ back as his  _ vod’ika _ cried into his arms. He knows the two of them were not as close as the ARC was with Echo or Rex but Cody does not care. He’s still his baby brother, ever since he met him on that moon, and he absolutely refuses to let him succumb to his own grief.

“I… I saw it happening…” Fives cries quietly, clinging to the commander as he cried. “I… I could’ve… I  _ saw _ it…”

Cody shushes him. “It’s okay. It’s okay. No one saw it coming. There was nothing you could’ve done to prevent this from happening.”

_ You could have prevented it. _

The burden is back on Cody’s shoulders again. The memories surge as he holds the shaking man, returning to the forceful shove Echo had given him out the way of the trajectory of the missile, the image of Echo with his shield raised in protection, the missile that sends him flying as a scarred corpse and leaving him for dead. The sight of the ARC Trooper, Fives’ batchmate, Rex’s child, Cody’s little brother, against the durasteel of the gunship. Paralyzed and afraid. Clinging to life as it slowly slips away.

Cody can’t stop the thoughts that run in his head and penetrate his skull.  _ He could have stopped it. He should have been more careful. He should have known. He should have done something, protected the trooper as he did the commander, saved him like how he saved everyone else. _

The mission was a success but at what cost? What success was there when the troopers Cody was meant to protect slipped from his grasp? There was none, according to him. There was nothing to gain when Split, Longshot, and Charger and so many others were dead. There was no satisfaction of failing to kill the man responsible for their deaths. There was only guilt and failure present, reminding him of all he could have done in order to spare the young boy this pain. He should’ve, he should’ve… but he  _ didn’t _ . Just like on that fucking moon, just like how he had refused to take up Iuya’s blade for fear it would scorn her memory. It is just like that, only this yielded just as worse. Maybe even more.

He had the resources, the tech, and the training to save his men. Now he lost some of his closest friends. And Echo’s in a stasis chamber with no telling when he will wake up. It’s all his fault.

When Fives stops sniffling excessively, and his body stops shaking with his heavy sobs, he speaks up again. His voice is hoarse and unused, a knife plunged deeper into Cody’s chest. “I— I’m sorry…”

“No, don’t be,  _ vod _ ,” Cody hushes him, taking him by the shoulders to look him in the eyes, giving him a stone gaze. He’d brush away his tears like he did so many of his younger siblings, but he’s sure that Fives is not used to this type of physical affection from a commander not with his battalion, and as such would be more overwhelmed by the situation. “You’re gonna be alright, okay? He’s a strong kid. He’ll get through this.”

“Yeah,” Fives sniffles. More tears gather beneath his eyes. “Yeah, he’s always been stubborn. He… yeah, you’re right.”

“Of course I am,” Cody tells him, determined in his tone. He ponders whether to speak the words that gather in his throat, but considers that it would probably give Fives more closure if he does so. He’s seen the way the younger looks at him. He can’t blame him, but the pit within his stomach grows as his chest screams out in agony.  _ It’s all his fault.  _ “I’m sorry. I didn’t think he would actually do that. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Fives wipes hastily at his eyes. “It’s not your fault. I saw it coming, I should have… nevermind.”

That honestly does nothing to soothe the guilt shivering up Cody’s spine, but instead, he focuses on taking care of his brother. “You look hungry. Go down to the mess hall, Kix and Jesse are right out the door waiting for you.”

Even under all the stress and pain, Fives manages a despondent laugh. “That’s not a suggestion, is it, sir?”

“No, it’s an order. Head down there, trooper. And take a nap while you’re at it.”

Fives hesitates, looking back up at the boy within the bacta tank, face once again falling into a fractured husk. Cody keeps his arm on Fives’ back, keeping him safe with a physical touch, attempting to soothe him in any way he can. Even if the guilt and the loss he had sustained from that goddamn mission still has a claw around his throat. Finally, Fives tears his gaze away, albeit painfully as the snap of a neck. “Watch over him, sir?”

“Of course,  _ Fiv’ika _ . Now go get some breakfast.”

Fives nods. He takes a few steps back, hesitant to leave his baby brother behind, before walking out the door. His hand flies to his head, as if nursing an incoming headache, most likely from the first few steps he had taken since he had been standing in front of the chamber for unknown hours. He leaves Cody’s view, leaving the commander to look up and face his  _ vod’ika _ .

Echo’s face is calm, at peace. Almost angelic amidst the shine of the luminescent blues swimming around his body. His eyes are fluttered shut, his mouth is pulled into a comfortable thin line. If you could ignore everything around his cherub-like visage, nothing could be considered wrong. But something  _ was _ wrong. And Cody was the one to blame.

He fights down a wave of tears that nearly gather in his eyes. He’s not going to cry. He can’t. He just stands there. And watches.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. But Echo doesn’t hear him.

  
  


Training’s the only thing keeping the emotions at bay.

Foregoing his former feelings about training with simulations, he went toe to toe with the apparitions of droids within his private training quarters, golden saber flying in spinning circles faster than the eye could perceive. He dashes between their ranks with quick precision, keeping his mind focused and calculated, no matter how much his body screams for a break or the pile of paperwork that is currently overflowing his desk in his room. They would not be due till a few days time, so for now he refuses to acknowledge them as he carves a crevice within the spine of a commando droid.

Training was the only thing keeping him from thinking about everything. Here, exuding nothing but blood and sweat and the occasional grunt, he did not have to be shackled by things unseen. He doesn’t hold back when he punches and kicks and maims and does anything, because all of this saves him from thinking. Here, he doesn’t have to think about the war. He doesn’t have to think about Echo’s face in that bacta tank, or Longshot’s call of his name before he is silenced by the red flare of the blast, or Sobeck’s body falling into the lava streams beneath, or the consequences of his failures that catch up to him. All he focuses on is flipping over droids with a bellowing war cry, watching as they fall one by one, ignoring their mechanical cries and the tear of their metal hulls.

He barely takes a rest. The minute he downs a number of droids in a simulation, he activates the next phase. Goes through all of them starting from level one, working his way up, and when he’s done, he does it all over again. Activate, fight, water, activate. Activate, fight, water, activate. Soon it becomes routine, and for a few peaceful hours of driving his blade into one droid and his heel into the other, the world around him disappears.

At least until the doors of his training quarters open up, left unlocked in the case of an emergency, revealing the faces of his  _ vode _ that he is too occupied to look at in the current moment. However, when he does manage a glance, he finds an uncommon sight that he wishes weren’t so irregular: all his batchmates — Wolffe, Fox, Bly, and Ponds — plus Rex standing outside, watching him as he ducks beneath the punch of another droid and backflips, kicking it right beneath the chin. He lands with ease, still on task, falling to his knees and propelling himself around in a spin to slice at several droids’ ankles before dicing upwards at a final one. He grabs an incoming punch from a disarmed MagnaGaurd, reaching into his belt to clip his lightsaber to it and pull out a vibroknife he had installed around the time the new set of Phase II clone trooper armor had come out, slicing it straight through the droid’s arm. He kicks it away, sparks flying from it as its form dissipates against the wall.

“Cody?” Rex calls out.

The last clanker barrels towards him, but he merely kicks it in the knee to destabilize it, before he promptly grabs its head and tears it straight from its neck socket. The rest of the droid’s body stumbles drunkenly and falls to the ground with the rest of its fellas. Cody turns around to face the others, still holding the droid’s head in his hand. “Yeah?”

All of his brothers glance at one another, silently conversing. Normally, he doesn’t like to barge into other people’s business, and his batchmates knew that, but he’s definite that they had been discussing him beforehand, and it already has him dreading this interaction.

“We’re… worried about you,” Ponds begins, eyeing the droid skull in Cody’s hand.

At that, Cody frowns. “Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Fox deadpans. “Maybe it’s because you’ve been cooped up in here for the past few days and have not answered your HUD since then. You’ve barely come out for food or sleep; the latter being debatable. No, we’re here to ask you for Senator Palpatine’s forged signature.”

“What Fox is trying to say is,” Wolffe translates, “since we’re all on leave right now, we thought it would be good for you to get outside and hang out with us.”

That didn’t sound suspicious.

“Where?”

“Just some drinks at 79’s,” Ponds shrugs. “Just a night out, all of us, together.”

“Unless you don’t want to,” Rex adds. “We know how you feel about 79’s.”

Cody regards them with a look. He can see the words that fly around on their faces, each one crafted deliberately before him. He knows that all of them had been worried about his aloof behavior these past couple of days, especially after such a grueling mission, even though the worry felt undeserved and should have been expended onto Rex. They know that he’s not all that buzzed about 79’s — he’s always complained that there were too many people there, and some of the drinks he’s tried in there were only as strong as purified water. But considering all the stuff he’s been going through the past couple of days, added onto the promise of their pestering worry being downed by filtered booze, the prospect doesn’t sound that daunting.

“Screw it,” he announces, tossing the head of the droid that he had ripped from its neck over his shoulder, allowing the simulation to fizzle out and the room to be clear of the other mechanical corpses lining his feet. “Let’s go.”

His siblings didn’t seem to think that would have worked, but they were pretty content with his answer as they led him out of the training quarters and to the base’s hangar.

The six of them crowd up the taxi they get into to take them down to 79’s, much to the driver’s annoyance. The back seats only accounted for three people, and the shotgun was immediately taken by Fox ( the little shit who Cody no longer considered a brother ). That left the other five to take up space within the tight space behind the driver’s seat. Cody was pressed between Wolffe and Bly, with Rex and Ponds squeezing them in their seats even more akin to the weight of a Rishi Eel pressed on both his sides. Through the rearview mirror at the top of the dashboard, he can see Fox eyeing them, his normal deadpan face contorted into a smirk.

“How are you holding up?” he asks them innocently.

“Choke on a bantha, Fox,” Cody replies.

Luckily, they reach 79’s before they are able to destroy the taxi cab from the inside, Bly being the responsible one to pay for the ride — along with an apology for their constant chatter and behavior. They each jump out of the taxi cab, and Cody relishes in the feeling of actually being able to breathe, fixing up his armor plates as he follows the others into the building complex being guarded by a quartet of clone troopers stationed on Coruscant. Their siblings give them welcoming nods, their shoulders squaring up at the sight of the commanders entering right through the doors between them.

As expected, 79’s was packed to the brim. There were people of all species crowding around the rooms up and below — Twi’Leks, Togrutas, Rodians and Pantorans. The main population within this bar, however, were the clones. Brothers, sisters, and siblings of all shapes and sizes, crowding around barstools and cheering on Bolo-ball tournaments on the holoscreen. He could recognize Jesse and Kix from the 501st, Stak and Razor from Gallia’s men, even a few of Ghost Company that had taken residence in a nearby set of chairs, doing lines of shots and cackling to hell. 79’s was an erratic space home to neon lights that streamed down and illuminated the faces of the people residing here, the music deafening as many clones and their partners accumulated on the dance floor, jiving and spinning and twirling around like it was the last night of their lives. Which could be, in many cases. Cody doesn’t want to think of such things.

Under the blaring music, Wolffe and Fox wince. The two of them had the most keen hearing in the group, hence the name, which meant that they also had the most  _ sensitive _ hearing in the group. Cody smushes himself between them, grazing his hand over their backs as they adjust to the screaming of the stereo.

They choose a booth that forms a ring around a circular table with a holochess table carved into its center, leaving the rest of the metal to accommodate for food and beverage. Cody sits himself routinely between Rex and Wolffe, while the others take residence on the other side. From there, they use one of the panels embedded into the base of the table to order their drinks. Fox and Cody order cocktails while Wolffe and Ponds settle for cider. Bly picks out a can of beer that immediately has everyone gaping at him. Finally, Rex picks some sour whiskey, and they get their drinks only a few minutes later by the droid waitress serving out the food.

“How are you even drinking that,  _ vod _ ?” Ponds asks, making a face at Bly who’s chugging his can of beer without even a grimace. Bly stops, shrugs, and continues drinking.

Cody settles comfortably in his seat, taking in the atmosphere around him. He sees his brothers crowding around the holos scattered around the walls, roaring as the droids on the screen win a point for their team. A few of his sisters having an arm-wrestling match down at the booths over, a white-haired one going at arms with a plait-hair one. Old veterans gossiping with one another at the bar table, sipping martini glasses and talking about things he cannot hear from here. It’s rowdy, and chaotic, and too disorderly for his liking. But there’s a part of him that likes the lack of quiet, that adores the way his siblings let loose and enjoy life all that they can, starting bar fights with one another or dancing to the rhythmic tunes blaring overhead. There’s a sense of calm he feels when he sees all of this. The knowledge that, here, the war would never reach them.

Wolffe chugs down half of his beverage, sighing in relief once the liquid goes down his throat. “Ah, that hits the spot. ‘Specially after the shit I had to put up with yesterday down at Renkar.”

“Renkar?” Rex asks. “What happened on Renkar?”

“We were supposed to do a small rescue op down on the planet for a few civvies when we were captured by Separatist forces and taken to their base,” Wolffe grunts. “So to try to escape, we released a bunch of Renkar Beasts from their pens and had them overwhelm the Seppies. It was working pretty well up until they stormed into  _ our _ ship and began to wreck the place.”

“Oh.”

“It gets worse. Comet, Warthog, and Skull decided to take a couple of ‘em by the reigns, so right after we managed to corral them back into their pens, there was one that had been smuggled aboard by the time we had taken off for hyperspace. Thank the stars General Plo had been there with us. Calmed it down well enough to be docile.”

“What happened to it?” Fox questions with a raised eyebrow.

Wolffe sighs. “We sent it on its way back to the planet. General Plo had grown soft on it though. Tried to take it with us to Coruscant.”

Cody imagines the lives they would lead if they had actually brought a Renkar Beast into the base of Coruscant, and how many fires would erupt to scourge the planet that way. It’s enough to make him thankful that Wolffe was a responsible adult and that Master Plo was reasonable enough to not take something like those carnivorous creatures into the Jedi Temple. He doesn’t think the Republic would last a day with those things running around and causing havoc.

“What about you,  _ Pond’ika _ ?” Wolffe questions the clone opposite of him of the holotable, who was graciously sipping down his bubbling cider, grimacing with each swallow. Ponds sets down his glass, his familiar grin settling on his facade.

“We got attacked by bounty hunters again.”

Cody frowns. “Again? That’s the third time this month.”

Ponds shrugs off-handedly. “I don’t know, but it’s like they  _ really _ want the 91st dead. Luckily General Windu was there to stop them. I think he’s the one that they’re really going after — someone’s been placing a couple hundred bounties on his head. Dunno why.”

“Not surprising,” Fox comments. “He’s a High Jedi General. He’s probably wanted in several systems. Honestly, I’d be terrified if he  _ didn’t _ have a bounty on his head.”

“You get terrified? You feel emotions?”

“Shut up.”

“Anyways!” Ponds continues. “The one that attacked us was Aurra Sing and some Trandoshan. Think his name was Bossk. They hijacked our ship mid-flight and nearly shot all the crew. Fortunately for us, we were right next to the airlock.”

“You sent them into space?”

“Nah. All we did was slow them down, gave us a few minutes to get all armored up. ‘Ventually they escaped. Doubt they won’t come back though — I’m getting really tired of seeing Sing’s long-ass fingers.”

“Ugh,” Fox comments.

“Bly?” Ponds asks. “What about you? How’ve you been snuggling up with General Secura?”

Cody could never describe a shade of red that would ever match the flush that dons Bly’s cheeks at the wording, and the group grows shit-eating grins at the sight of the man covering his face with his hands. He’s blushing furiously. “Yeah, you heard him,” Wolffe teases. “How have you and your  _ cyare _ been doing off-planet?”

“ _ Vod! _ ” Bly yelps, his face somehow turning a darker shade. Somehow the flushing of the beer is overwhelmed by their little brother’s embarrassment. “We didn’t do anything.”

The batch exchange glances. “So, you haven’t been doing anything?” Wolffe asks, wiggling his eyebrows. “No campaign, no mission, no nothing? Were you hanging out with your general?”

Now Bly’s hiding his entire face behind his hands, groaning under the others’ heartful chuckling. “No, we were on recon down at the nearest sector over Republic intelligence. It was just some mission, nothing happened.”

“Sure, Mr. Secura,” Fox says.

Bly peers through his gloved fingers to fix a deadly glare on his twin brother. “That was  _ one _ time.”

“You greatly misunderstand how one time is all I need to crack you down.”

“Fox, I swear…”

“You gave me those mission reports with doodles of Aayla Secura surrounded by a bunch of hearts, you can’t expect me to  _ not _ bring it up every time we’re together.”

“Alright, then.” Bly slams his hands on the table, staring pointedly at the red-clad man next to him. “Why don’t you tell us about your week, brother?”

Fox scoffs. “I’m not authorized to tell any of you.”

They all look at him.

Fox sips the rest of his cocktail and places it on the table, folding his hands together as his back straightened to the rigidity of an actual senator. “Senator Yula’s been sleeping with Senator Min Note.”

“ _ What? _ ”

What proceeds after that is an entire thirty-minute gossip session of Fox spilling all of the scandals that had been happening within the Senate. Fox has been a part of numerous meetings and stationed in front of tons of sleeping quarters, so obviously he would have all the latest news on the people of the Senate — and this week in particular, Fox claims, was probably the Senate at its absolute worst. There were several different sleeping scandals between senators of different planets, an actual fistfight had occurred in one of the Senate’s many natborn bars, and there had been around fifty assassination attempts with only two of them being actually successful. The two people assassinated in the attempts were of neutral planets, so it didn’t really bother the Senate at all, but it did cause a ruckus that lasted up until the news of Senators Yula and Min Note sleeping with one another came to fruition.

By the end, Rex is placing fingers against his temple in a headache, Ponds is staring at the table with a dead look, Bly is blinking rapidly as he processes all the information, Wolffe is pressing his hands together in a prayer against his forehead, and Fox is still sipping his goddamn cocktail with eyes that have seen hell itself. “How the hell do you find out about this stuff?” Cody asks him once he’s finished with his existential crisis over the fact that this war is led by a group of people with a new controversy every week.

Fox looks him dead in the eye. “Who do you think was stationed outside Senator Yula’s room?”

That’s probably the first time Cody feels sorry for Fox. And the first time he feels genuine fear.

“Anyways, I told the other officers and we got it reported immediately so we wouldn’t have to be stationed outside there again,” Fox says. “Then I chugged down an entire bottle of whiskey in the shower.”

“Wow,” Wolffe mutters. “That’s… a lot.”

“Yeah,” Ponds nods. “I don’t think I can look at Senator Freemo when Windu and I visit him again. Rex? What about your week?”

Rex falls quiet. Even when he was pretty much inducted into the batch when Cody had introduced him to them, he was still pretty unused to talking with all of them as if he had come out the same birth cohort with them. To him, he was the odd one out — a captain surrounded by commanders, a cadet around ARCs. Despite how much he had fit into the group like a puzzle piece, he still felt uncomfortable when they addressed him with such familiarity. That, along with the recent mission of losing Charger along with his other men and nearly losing Echo, was enough to make him shift awkwardly in his seat.

Cody instinctively places a hand on his  _ vod’ika _ ’s shoulder guard, of which the man immediately tenses beneath his touch. Cody frowns, and gives the others a pointed look to remind him of the mission they had gone on. Ponds makes an  _ o _ with his mouth and apologizes sincerely.

“Well, what about before?” Bly questions. “Any updates on that?”

Rex thinks for a few moments. “Well… General Skywalker threw me over a bridge again.”

They all freeze.

“Again?” Fox asks, narrowing his eyes at the younger to decipher if he’s lying or not. “What do you  _ mean _ again?”

Rex seems to realize that the only two people at this table he’s actually conferred with on General Skywalker’s habit of chucking him up the nearest surface are Cody and Wolffe, and the rest of them are currently staring at him in a dumbfounded manner. “Oh, yeah. It’s like his kind of thing where if we need to get somewhere higher, he just… throws me up there.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was.”

Cody scowls. “You know, if you’re uncomfortable with it, you need to tell him—”

“Oh no, I’m fine. It saves us the time of climbing up and down, and he always catches me before I fall but it’s… an experience.”

“How many times has he done this?” Ponds questions.

“Honestly?” Rex sighs. “I can only count the times he  _ hasn’t _ done this.”

Cody can remember the blood-curdling scream that had erupted from Rex’s mouth during a mission with the 501st out at the near region where General Skywalker tossed him up the nearest building to aid him in getting into a sniping position. Skywalker had offered to toss Cody up as well. Cody, justifiably, declined. He knows that Skywalker was just being a helping hand, but he should probably talk to him about throwing Rex up every incline based on the number of stress lines that increase on his little brother’s face.

“Luckily, Commander Tano stopped doing that around a few months ago,” Rex says. “She’s grown up a lot. I’m pretty sure she was at my shoulder when I first met her.”

Wolffe huffs. “She might be more mature but she still makes me give her piggy-back rides around the base.”

“You don’t hate it though.”

“I don’t,” Wolffe admits with a sigh. Finally, his gaze settles on the commander next to him, eyeing him with interest. “ _ Cod’ika _ , it’s your turn.”

“Yeah,” Ponds agrees. “Out of all of us, you get the most action. You’ve been training with Windu, right? How’s it like? Did you knock him on his  _ shebs _ ?”

Cody shrugs. “It’s fine.”

They all offer him deadpan looks.

“It’s fine,” Fox repeats.

“Well, what do you want me to say?” Cody retorts. “Nothing’s really happening, he’s just teaching me a few things. That’s all.”

“Didn’t he come to a council meeting with a broken nose one time?” Wolffe asks him, furrowing his eyebrows at Cody. “Said it was some training accident during your first lesson with him. You did that, didn’t you?”

Cody shrugs. “We were sparring.”

“Hold on!” Rex calls out, pulling his hands up in the air to stop anyone else from speaking. “You  _ broke _ Mace Windu’s nose? When?”

“A week ago,” Cody says. “Again, sparring practice.”

“But you broke his nose.”

“You know, if you all are going to keep saying that I might as well break your noses right now.”

“Alright!” Ponds calls out, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “Fine, have it your way. I’m just glad you’ve softened up to him. He’s not a bad guy. I’m glad you see it now.”

Cody fights back a scoff, because if there’s anything that he would have never dreamed of happening in this war besides dogpiling General Grievous or jumping off a cliff, it would be talking — much less training — with General Windu. After the Battle of Geonosis, and the troopers were all lined up to be congratulated for their help, Cody adamantly refused to look General Windu in the eye. Over time, his anger sizzled within himself, though he was able to keep it in check for the most part until Tiika. He doesn’t fully understand how exactly he had come to soften on Windu, or if he even wants to think they’re mutual comrades of some sort, because as far as Cody is concerned he’s  _ still _ Jango’s killer. But from what Ponds had told him months ago ( after Cody avoided him for speaking highly of the  _ buir kyramud _ ) he takes care of his men, and he cares about the Republic and the people they save. And after Iuya’s death, he guessed the anger began to sap away.

It’s still there. Burning. But not as strong as before.

“Yeah,” he answers. “It’s an experience.”

“Bet it is,” Fox comments. “He’s bloody terrifying, which is good considering that he makes the Chancellor nervous.”

“Again with the Chancellor?” Wolffe asks his  _ vod’ika _ . Exasperation seethes through his voice.

“I am telling you!” Fox argues with more passion than Cody’s ever seen him have. And the most passion Fox has ever had was whenever they played a game of sabacc together. “There’s something up with him. I swear, I think he visits the Coruscant Guard barracks in the dead of night and goes up and down the aisles watching us sleep. I have never seen him blink. I’m serious.”

“Yeah, because your eyes are always closed,” Cody jokes, earning a few quiet cackles from the others. “You probably fell asleep doing his paperwork and had a nightmare about him.”

( It was always an inside joke when it came to Fox sleeping or slacking off during his duties. Despite how much he hated his job, along with the constant assassination attempts and senatorial affairs, he was always devoted to completing a task. He liked to get things done and move onto the next, and any sense of rest was a foreign concept to him. He told Cody once that he probably can’t live without work, because he’s been built for combat and, due to the only exciting aspect of his routine being guard duty, he needed something to do or he would die of boredom and disappointment. Cody, in turn, called him a nerd and flicked him on the forehead. )

Fox rolls his eyes, promptly downs his cocktail, and steals Cody’s before he can even manage a protest. “Keep laughing,  _ vod _ . The Chancellor talked to me. Told me you and him had a little chat down at the base.”

“You hate him but you still talk to him?”

“Against my will. It’s in the job description.” He sips on Cody’s drink. “What did he say to you? Notice anything?”

He thinks back to the conversation the two had the night when he had first trained with Mace Windu, along with accompanying Wooley down to the markets of Coruscant. The way the man never dropped his smile, white teeth glinting back at him and filling him with a sense of dread, icy blue eyes staring into his own. Something about how the white ringed the irises was unnerving, enough to make his stomach clench and his temple throb with an unknown pain. Something about his graveled voice was unnerving. Something about it had all his limbs snapping to attention. Something was up with the Chancellor, but Cody’s learned that his gut reaction wasn’t always the best reaction, and it was most likely from the exhaustion of the day that he had been hallucinating that whole scene.

So he shrugs. “Just asked me how I was doing. That’s it.”

“See?” Wolffe announces. “The Chancellor’s just an old geezer, he can’t do any harm. You’re just seeing things.”

Despite the rest of the group deeming it so, Fox glances at Cody, narrowing his eyes at him.  _ I know you’re hiding something, _ he seemed to say. But he makes no move to bring up the Chancellor again. He just leans back in his seat, finishes the stolen drink, and semi-ignores Cody for the rest of the night.

For the rest of the night, pretty much every single one of them gets wasted one way or the other. Cody’s pretty good at holding his liquor, and as such experiences less symptoms than the rest of his men ( and he was pretty good at hiding the slight distortion he feels whenever he drinks ), so as such he was pretty much the only one not going rabid. Ponds passed out after his second drink. Bly got all gushy and began to speak in limericks, slurring in his words as he giggles at nothing in particular. Fox would have been considered the best when it came to alcohol since he too showed no symptoms, but he downed so many drinks that Cody could no longer count. Rex was pretty solemn, as always when he drank, clinging to Cody and laying his head against his shoulder. And Wolffe was louder than a gaggle of keeradacks, and often stopped in his avid conversations with Fox to howl into the night.

While in their drunken state, the night was so eventful Cody wonders now how none of them were banned from the bar by the end. He and Wolffe decide to have an arm wrestle contest with one another, and since Cody can never back away from a challenge posed to him, and he always searches for an opportunity to knock his older brother on his ass, they go toe to toe with one another across the table. The match lasts for around half an hour, all his  _ vode _ cheering for either brother for the first half and dozing off at the second. Both of their arms were sore by the end, screaming for rest, yet they both kept them right in the position they had started in with barely any falter. The only reasons they stopped were because both were becoming bored, and Ponds woke up to have a vomit emergency.

After more shot-taking and avid conversations on their own experiences with their respective troopers, along with accidentally breaking several glasses and possibly committing a crime, they decide to lay back a while and play some Dejarik. Here it was Rex and Fox, both lacing their fingers beneath their chins with elbows resting against the metal of the table, narrowing eyes at one another to try to read one another’s moves on the board. The two of them were the best at holochess in both their respective battalions, which means that every time they went against each other in the game, it would almost always yield an eventful time for all parties involved. Both of them were always ahead of each other  _ at the same exact time _ , and as confusing as it sounded, it was pretty much true.

Cody watches them go at one another, Rex tapping one of the buttons on the side of the console to move one of the monsters forward, demolishing Fox’s monnok. Fox hums. “Smart move,” he says a bit too condescendingly, as if he’s already read the next few moves Rex has. Rex only glances up at him, poker face nearly matching the intensity of Fox’s own. It was always a clash between them, with Fox being unreadable and Rex being unpredictable.

Wolffe yawns, leaning back in the cushions of the booth to rest his hands behind his head. “Wake me when they’re done,” he tells Cody in a booming voice, shutting his eyes in order to mimic sleep.

Cody rolls his eyes, adjusting his shoulder so Bly wouldn’t be uncomfortable against him. The younger was past his talkative stage and now in his drowsy, clinging phase; he rested his head against Cody, fighting to keep his eyes open after the long night. Down by Fox, Ponds was still knocked out.

“You say that yet you were placing actual bets when Boost and Sinker were playing holochess,” he comments.

“Yeah, because it’s actually enjoyable. They’re too busy one-upping one another that they forget how to actually play. These two? It’s like watching armor paint dry.”

Cody hums, in agreement. It’s always fun when Boil and Waxer go against each other in sabacc — by the end, both of them end up betting their belongings along with one of the shinies. Dejarik required strategy — and a drunk Wolffe  _ hated _ thinking about strategy when he’s chugged down a gallon of cider.

“So, you’re enjoying the night?” Wolffe inquires of him suddenly, loud voice falling to a softer whisper.

Cody nods. “Yeah. Thanks, Wolffe.”

“See? Having drinks with your bros is so much better than hiding away in some training area. You need to relax every once in a while.”

Cody frowns at him. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been working non-stop since this whole ‘lightsaber business’ started,” Wolffe explains as if it’s a common fact. “You barely have time to hang out with me and Rex anymore. Always saying you got training or business or something. You need to take a break.”

“I am on a break.”

“Yeah, cause we asked you to. But seriously, something’s up with you lately. Is it because—?”

Before Wolffe can finish his sentence, Cody hears Rex slam his forehead against the table in defeat. He looks toward the board, where Fox’s own monster had moved up a diagonal towards Rex’s second-to-last creature. The Ng’ok lashes out at Rex’s piece with a hand full of rows of sharp teeth, grabbing the monster’s right leg and tearing it from its body. The chess piece screams out in agony before its hologram falls to the ground, bleeding from the wound. Fox’s poker face does not shift, though Cody could see the familiar glint in his eyes that always stirred up trouble.

“One piece left, Rex?” Fox asks him innocently.

“ _ Mir’sheb _ ,” Rex responds, glaring at him and grinding his teeth together.

Cody can’t help but chuckle. Bly shifts against his shoulder, but Cody gently has him lay back down to have him rest some more. Wolffe, however, turns his distracted focus back to Cody. “ _ Cod’ika _ , I’m asking you.”

Cody gives him a waving-off gesture. “I’m fine.”

  
  


When Cody returns to his quarters later in the night, something seems wrong.

Well, it wasn’t wrong at first glance — everything had seemed to be in working order, nothing too out of place. But when Cody allows the door to shut behind him, he frowns at the scene. He heads over to the nearest desk, where files and other flimsies were strewn about, numbers and codes written on them from the higher-ups, a few even from when he and Rex had devised some more codes for the Republic to use. When he had left the room earlier in the day to train, he was sure that the files on here were in a different spot. Really, they only moved an inch, which could be passable in most cases. He would’ve just deemed it as an apparent draft, or an occasional quake from the gunships taking off outside.

But once he’s finished brushing his teeth and getting ready for bed, he feels a twinge in his stomach when he looks at the mirror. He touches the glass with an ungloved finger, tracing it over a faint white line over his reflection. That’s something. He’s never had a scratch on his mirror before. 

It was weird, to say the least. But he’s already dealing with a lot right now. It was better to get some rest than to focus on whatever weird gut feeling he was having.

He heads over to his bed, pulling back the sheets to nestle within the comfort of his blankets, and is about to flip the switch to plunge his room into darkness when something stops him. He reaches over to his nightstand, flipping open his datapad. It seemed in working order. He checked his history and apps, and the only thing that had been left open ( by him, at least ) was the documents of songs that he had been leaving blank for the past few days. 

He hasn’t finished any songs, much less started any new ones. He remembers the night before when he opened up the app, felt a burst of shame seeing all his writing in plain sight, and shut off his datapad before he could be subject to it anymore. He just can’t find the time anymore. Missions were squeezing alongside one another. He was busy with lightsaber training and all that. He has to focus on his goal to kill Grievous and bring the Republic closer to victory, and make sure his men are there for the long ride. He can’t fail like that again. He can  _ never _ fail like that again.

Cody places the datapad back on his desk and checks the drawer. Finding all the books Master Jocasta Nu had lent him ( permanently now ) in their neat and precise order. He finds that good enough, and is about to close the drawer when he catches sight of something within the first manual he had read only a while ago. Frowning, he takes up the book, flipping to the page.

It’s the one about Vaapad. There’s a crease in the corner of the page. A mishappening when closing the book.

Cody hasn’t opened it in a while.

He stares at the crease for quite some time, as if challenging it to worsen the dread in his gut, before figuring this whole panic was useless and tossing the book back into the drawer again.

That night, he dreams yet again of phantoms crawling over the sky, of blood-red rivers and the cries of brothers that he is all too familiar with. He dreams of carcasses lining glassy beaches, lightsabers strewn about the land in a horrific masterpiece, spikes jutting from the ground and trapping him within their looming presence. He remembers the sound of a familiar blade, activating behind him, and a burning feeling in his stomach as the dream loses its tangibility.

But something’s different from this dream. He hears something in the distance. A laugh. No, a cackle. Growing closer, and closer. Enough to deafen him—

A chill goes down his spine as the dream fades into dark. As if there is some shadow overhead.

Watching him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fox is the equivalent of that one image of the conspiracy guard with the bulletin board. you know the one.
> 
> translations:  
> mir'sheb: smart-ass


End file.
